


Sealskin

by intheflowers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Building trust, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Domesticity, Hurt/Comfort, Lighthouses, M/M, Secrets, Selkies, Somewhat Functional Hargreeves Family, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 68,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intheflowers/pseuds/intheflowers
Summary: Dave is a lighthouse keeper on an isolated island. It’s a lonely life until a mysterious man washes ashore.





	1. The Lighthouse

When Dave takes the job on the island, people tell him that he’s crazy. That’s hardly unusual these days, but even those who have a little more faith in his sanity tell him he’ll lose it out there soon enough. All by himself. Only the sea, the wind-whipped shore and the light to keep him company. 

Maybe he wants to lose it, he thinks. Maybe he has nothing to lose.

~~~

Deep, deep, where the kelp grows tall and dark, where the sea floor angles down, where the sun barely reaches: that is where he lurks. Holding breath. Looking up at the surface.

Sand scrapes against his belly and he swims long and flat into the shallows, then up, and up. The sun is blinding once he breaks out into the open air and he blinks, hiding by the pole that holds up the creaking jetty, listening to footsteps above him. A stranger. 

They’re new to the island. He knows these things, often observes - close and curious despite the rules -

_ Do not tempt their cruelty. Do not let them catch you. If you must walk amongst them, be wary, for they bewitch our kind. It is best not to swim close at all.  _

He has never been one to heed such advice. What harm is a little spying, after all?

~~~

The light beams out across the ocean every night without fail. On clear nights it shines in unison with the stars. When it storms it cuts through brooding clouds. It warns ships away from rocks which could send sailors to an early grave, while for those desperate for a sign of land after months at sea, the light is always the first to greet them and guide them home. 

It beckons to others too: those curious creatures that navigate the dark, rough waters with neither vessels nor maps. To them, it is their very own fairy light shining out across the sea, bright as the moon and just as reliable. Round and round it goes, skimming the surface and catching on their glistening skin as they dive through the waves. They never dare to follow it right to its source; that island smells of the others and it is not wise to shed their skins in such a place.

Their kind likes to revel under the full moon. It is a noisy affair, full of song and screeching and laughter as they dance wild and free upon the shore. As they cannot go to the island with the light, they swim instead to nearby beaches in the archipelago. They hide their skins in the cracks between tidepools, and they play on the sand until dawn. The light dances with them, chasing shadows from their secret faces. 

And still it remains even when they do not revel, when the moon is nothing but a sliver, when they are sleek and water-bound once more. 

~~~

Some sleepless nights Dave fancies he hears the sound of voices on the wind. Too quiet to make out the words. Too far from anywhere to be anything real. 

He knows all the sounds of the island. The squawk of gulls awakening near the crack of dawn. The creaks and groans of the old wooden house he lives in, shifting in particularly rough gusts. The eternal roar of the waves. The hiss of the long grasses that grow all over. 

A lonely mind might form human voices from such sounds. The wind plays tricks often enough. 

~~~

He isn’t the fastest swimmer. He doesn’t have the strongest hunting bite. He can’t stay beneath the surface for long at all compared to one brother, while another brother - his stealthiest brother, and merely a pup - becomes impatient when he does not hide himself nor his skin as swiftly and as neatly as expected. 

They all have their talents. He just so happens to be a slippery creature. Escapes are easy. He slips into traps as often as he slips out of them, and he slips away from his pod whenever the whim crosses him. That gets him into trouble too. He knows there is safety in numbers, yet there is something so tantalising about swimming alone, or the lure of a patch of empty sand. Sometimes the beaches aren’t empty, although he keeps that a secret from his family. It’s only that he likes to look at them, those strange other-people, so like himself yet so different too. 

He doesn’t shed his skin around them, of course. He isn’t foolish. 

There is a song that he knows as well as the beat of his own heart. A song about those who go missing. It’s a dark, harrowing tale. It always begins when one of his kind falls victim to a hunter, a thief: one of the other-people. They steal the unfortunate’s skin. Slice it up. Throw it into that bright, hungry beast of theirs called fire. They devour the charred pieces with their wicked teeth for the purpose of dark magic, and then, once their ghastly ritual is complete, the poor, stranded soul is bent to the will of the human, broken and bare and forever lonesome. Trapped on shore, unable to return home. 

Or so the song goes. He doesn’t know how much of that is true and how much of that is meant to scare the young into keeping close during their first midnight romp on two legs. His sister says it is best to be cautious, to always hide their pelts as best they can, where only they might find them. It is impossible to know when they might be hunted.

He gave his pod the slip today, preferring instead to bask in the sun on the rocks of the light-island where his family will not go. There are other seals here, unlike himself and his pod. They are friendly enough, although the bull keeps a beady eye on him. The selkie risks his wrath and enjoys the warmth anyway, lying long and flat with his belly to the sky, listening to the chatter and barks of the mothers with their pups. He dozes, blinking black eyes sleepily, barely watching for danger. 

A clatter of stones from across the beach breaks through his sun-drunk daze. A few of the seals closest to the water dive in; a mother calls out for her child to stay close. The selkie startles onto his front, alert but mostly curious. 

One of the other-people is clambering down from a rocky crag. The seals watch him warily, although he does not wander close to them once he is steady on the ground. He looks threatening enough from afar, baring his teeth as he stares, shielding his eyes from the sun, draped in loose, strange-coloured clothes as humans always are. 

The man inches forward and the bull barks in warning, quite clearly, but he is ignored. The selkie huffs in embarrassment for the human. He should have expected it. After spying on these people over the years he has come to the conclusion that not only are they strange and mean and lumbering, they also aren’t very clever. 

His warning ignored, the bull now lunges towards the human who makes an odd, inscrutable sound, stepping back in a hurry. The bull stops. His breath whooshes out through his nose in disapproval. 

Making a hasty retreat, the man climbs back over the rocks, disappearing over the other side. The seal colony relaxes again. 

Turning around, the bull eyes the selkie.  _ Is this your doing, Strange One?  _ he asks with a tilt of his head and a low sound. 

The selkie lowers his gaze.  _ Not me.  _

~~~

‘There’s seals too,’ Dave says as he hands Eudora a cup of coffee. Despite his promises of sunshine and swimming, there’s been rain all weekend and it’s pretty damn miserable. Patch is wrapped up in one of his cable-knit sweaters like a real fisherwoman. ‘I got chased by one the other day.’ 

‘You know you’re not supposed to go close to them,’ she says, wrapping her hands around the cup. 

‘Yeah, I know. I wasn’t close at all. I’m not an idiot.’ 

‘Keep telling yourself that.’ 

He laughs and swats at her shoulder. ‘Damn, Patch. I forgot how mean you are.’ 

Not long after he settled in over here, Dave wrote to her inviting her to stay. She managed to wrangle a week off work back on the mainland and somehow in half a day she’s already banished the perpetual thunder cloud he’s been living under for the past month. 

‘Gotta give you at least one good reason to stay out here, right?’ she says. 

Dave sips at his drink. ‘It’s not too bad, really.’ The wind howls, a window pane rattling in its frame in another room, while the fire they are sitting in front of crackles and spits. ‘The island’s a beauty. It’d seem a hell of a lot nicer if I could show you around properly - I was gonna take you out to see the seals. There’s loads of babies this time of year.’ Eudora opens her mouth to protest, but Dave gets there first: ‘We’d look at them from a _ distance, _ you madwoman. Obviously.’

She hides her smile in her cup. Then she puts on her serious face and he steels himself. ‘I do worry about you, out here all on your own,’ she says quietly.

‘I keep busy.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘Honestly, though. You wouldn’t believe the sort of shit that’s part of my daily routine now. I have  _ goats  _ to look after. And weather reports to send out. I’ve even started learning to knit.’ 

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yup. Send me more records and I’ll trade you a ratty scarf. Made with love and devotion, of course.’ He puts his cup down and sifts through the box of records sitting on the coffee table - newies and oldies galore. ‘Thanks for these, by the way. They’ll be great.’ He grins at her. ‘No neighbours to complain when I turn the volume up as high as it’ll go in the middle of the night. Remember Mrs Johnson?’

Eudora shudders. ‘Don’t remind me.’

She’d been their neighbour when they lived together after highschool, both eager to move out of home, and she called noise control on many a wild teenage party. 

‘She’d have a fit,’ Dave says gleefully. 

Eudora shakes her head, amused, but when she looks up she fixes him with another serious look. ‘I’m glad you like the records,’ she says. ‘You’re very welcome. But don’t think I don’t notice you trying to distract me. I’m onto you, Katz.’

He sips his drink. ‘I’m just chatting. Got a month’s-worth of talk stored up.’

‘But that’s exactly it. A  _ month.  _ If something happened to you, there’s literally no one to help. Don’t you find that a bit much?’

He shrugs. ‘Hazel’s here with the supplies every two weeks. I can always radio in if there’s an emergency, or if I’m really unwell. And if I can’t do that, worse case scenario, then people will notice if the light’s not on. That’ll get them out here quicker than anything.’

‘You still shouldn’t be alone,’ she says. ‘It’s bad enough that you had to leave right after-’

‘Patch,’ he says stiffly. ‘Please don’t.’ 

She sighs. ‘Sorry.’

Dave leans back in the armchair, running his fingers over the tassel of a blanket thrown over the side. Although the silence isn’t awkward - it never is between them, they’ve known each other too long - he can sense her worry. She’s too proactive. If she has a prickle in her thumb, she picks at it until it is gone, the hurt relieved. No time wasted idling. 

He used to be like that. 

‘Wouldn’t you like to have a bit of company?’ Eudora asks. 

He looks at her with exasperation. ‘Course I would. You’ll need to forward me all eligible bachelors though. The dating scene is shit out here.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘You know what? That’s not such a bad idea - you could get a pen pal. Bit of long distance romance never hurt.’

‘Fuck off,’ he says jokingly, kicking out at her shin. ‘I didn’t realise that I lived in a damn rom-com.’

‘Hey, it could be worth a shot!’ 

‘Seriously? With my luck, I’d end up writing to someone from a different time or some shit. Like that weird Sandra Bullock movie with the mailboxes.’ 

The corner of her mouth twitches. ‘Sounds like someone’s a bit picky.’

‘Nope. Just realistic.’

They keep bickering and joking long into the evening, the heavier topics abandoned, pausing only when Dave has to fight his way up the hill to set the light. The storm has worsened; it’s blowing a gale now. Upon his return, he changes out of his soaked clothes, then settles in front of the crackling hearth. They talk until they are yawning wide like cats and the fire has burned down to an ember, until they really can’t put off going to bed any longer. 

~~~

The storm rages as they sleep, whipping the ocean into a surging frenzy, rattling the old house that shelters them. Lightning splinters across the sky and thunder cracks. Waves toss small bodies far from home, towards jutting rocks.

Pity the poor creatures left out in the dark. For them, it’s a night without rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this first chapter :~)  
I'm a fiend for selkie stories and I'm a fiend for Dave/Klaus so here we are, even if it's a bit weird. Klaus will not be a seal for long, I swear


	2. The Baby

The storm keeps the selkie and his pod ashore for two days. Now that it’s blown itself out, he is ravenous. He’s out on his own, determinedly herding fish into the shallows, when suddenly he hears the distressed cries of a pup. He forgets the fish and swims after the distant cry. 

He finds the poor thing tangled in a net, squirming, trying to get back into the water, only the net is snagged on the rocks and as far as the selkie can tell it is getting wedged tighter and tighter with every frantic movement. She must have been washed away from her mother last night, wild waters too powerful for one so small. It’s a lucky thing she wasn’t killed when she was thrown onto the rocks. That is a danger his kind knows all too well. 

The selkie swims in circles beneath the pup, rising up to nose her gently, letting her know help is here. 

Heaving himself onto the rocks, he investigates the tangle. If he uses his teeth to move it back into the water, the baby might drown if she can’t free herself in time. He wishes he could slip out of his skin for a moment; his nimble fingers would have the net free in an instant. But he can’t do that. It’s still a few days from the moontime, and even if it were closer it would be dangerous - this is the island where the other-people live. 

The baby cries while he frets over what to do. 

~~~

The sun has broken through and the wind has changed, bringing summer back to their shores. Dave and Eudora take their swimsuits and towels down to the cove. It’s rocky, with a small stretch of black sand which soaks up the heat until it feels like their feet are going to be burnt to a crisp. 

‘That’s more like it,’ Dave says as they dump their things, basking in the sunshine. ‘Isn’t it just gorgeous out here on a good day?’

To his left, Eudora jumps from foot to foot, muttering, ‘Ow, ow, ow…’ 

He watches her slyly before inching towards her as sneakily as he can, wonderful plans forming in his mind that involve scooping her up, running to the water, and throwing her in. It would make such a big splash. 

She turns with the speed of a whip. ‘Don’t you  _ dare,  _ David Katz.’

He grins, backing away. ‘Always supicious, aren’t ya? Damn cop.’ 

‘I know you,’ she says, putting her hands on her hips, ‘and you’re not getting me this time.’ 

‘Ah well. Race you?’ 

Before he gets a response he’s off, Eudora right on his heels, laughing and taunting each other. 

When they’re in - neither fully submerged yet, adjusting slowly to the cold - he manages to sneak up on her again, and this time he grabs her, chucking her out in a soaring arc as she screams her lungs out. And yes, the splash is magnificent. 

She rises up out of the water with a murderous expression, her hair in her face like a deadly lagoon creature.  It’s not long until she gets her revenge, jumping on him and dragging him under. He comes up with laughter still on his lips, tasting salt. 

That’s when he sees the seal for the first time. 

It’s by the rocks, keeping its distance, swimming on the spot with its nose out of the water, black eyes shining. It’s looking right at him. 

‘Oh,’ Dave says, staring right back. 

‘What have you done now, you weirdo?’ Eudora asks, and when he doesn’t reply she turns to look too. ‘Oh, wow.’

They both go completely still, entranced. Dave can see its whiskers. 

Then he hears a high-pitched cry coming from around the rocks, faint enough that he almost thinks he imagined it.

‘Can you hear that?’ Patch asks.

He nods. ‘Do you think-’

The seal barks at them, cutting him off, before ducking beneath the water and swimming out of sight. 

‘I think it wants us to follow,’ Dave says.

‘It’s a seal.’

‘So? Seals are pretty clever.’

They must be lingering too long because it appears again, making a huffing noise that is a touch too close to exasperation before disappearing once more. 

‘Told you,’ he says. ‘Come on.’ 

He wades to the rocks and climbs up. Patch sighs in resignation as she follows close behind. 

Stepping carefully over sun-bleached oyster shells and shallow rock pools, he navigates his way across to the side which faces the open ocean, following the yelps and cries. Once he's about halfway over the seal leaps up, scattering water droplets everywhere, dark grey skin glistening in the sunshine. 

Dave keeps a cautious eye on the animal, moving hesitantly so not to startle it. The seal matches his gaze, steady and unblinking. 

‘Be careful - you’re getting real close to it, Dave,’ Patch calls out from behind him. ‘Ouch.’ 

‘Watch out for the oysters.’ 

‘Yeah, no shit. You watch out for the enormous wild seal too, ‘kay?’ 

The seal slides away from him as he nears but doesn’t dive back into ocean. Instead it looks down into a small crack, making that impatient huffing noise again.

Dave peers down and sees the source of the cries. 

‘You know how I promised you baby seals?’ he says slowly. ‘Well. I’m a man of my word.’ 

‘It’s a baby?’

‘Yeah. It’s stuck. I just need to…’ He trails off, getting to his knees and reaching down to the spot where the net is caught. Entwining both hands in it, he slowly pulls the bundle up, making sure not to swing the pup about too much. It is yelping a lot, writhing, terrified. The other seal makes a whooshing noise, trying to calm the baby. Dave figures it is the mother. 

‘Hey, hey, it’s okay,’ he soothes. ‘We’re gonna get you out of here.’ 

He lays the tangled net down on the rocks and works at finding a way in. The seal pup cries and flops about rather violently. 

‘Just so you know, that seal’s staring you down,’ Patch says. ‘If looks could kill...’ 

‘Well, there’s not much I can do except get this one free as fast as I can. Can you come and hold it down? All its fussing is making a hard task impossible.’ 

Patch comes up next to him and presses the baby still with gentle hands. ‘I could run up to the house and grab a pair of scissors.’ 

‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I think I’ve almost got it.’ 

And he does. With a small  _ yes _ of triumph he wrangles his hand inside an opening, pulling it wide enough for the fat wee pup to fit through, the nylon threads snapping as they break apart.  Brushing the loose net aside, he runs his hands over the rolls of blubber and light layer of fur. It seems exhausted and doesn’t try to snap at him at all. 

From its watchful position across from them, the adult seal barks and whines. Dave looks up at it, wide-eyed, holding up his hands as if to show it that he isn’t going to hurt its baby. 

‘Is it okay?’ Patch asks. She has sensibly moved back, not wanting to crowd the already stressed animals. 

He glances at the pup. There is a shallow scratch on its belly, but otherwise it seems mostly unharmed. ‘I think so. How do we get it back in the water? The mom’s pretty antsy.’ 

‘Do we just leave it?’ 

‘I don’t know. I guess.’ 

‘The mom’ll know what to do,’ Patch says. ‘She’s smart, like you said.’ 

Like it knew they were talking about her, the seal snorts and lunges towards them. They both rise up and back away sharply, being careful not to trip on the uneven surface.

It ignores them once they’ve moved away, going straight to the pup, which is still crying out pitifully. The mother seal nudges it with her nose, softly, before suddenly jabbing the baby over to the edge of the rock. She's relentless and ends up shoving it over the edge and down into the water, diving right in after it.

‘Jeez,’ Eudora says. ‘Tough love.’ 

‘Probably didn’t want to linger,’ Dave says absently. He’s staring out at the water, trying to see if he can spot them coming up for air. The water glints white where the sun hits it, blinding. When nothing surfaces, he steps back and sits down on the rocks, brow furrowing as he processes the unlikely events. 

‘So that just happened,’ Patch says. She gathers her hair into a ponytail and squeezes the water from it. 

He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘It was weird, right? Tell me I’m not alone in thinking that was weirder than usual.’ 

‘It was definitely weird.’

The sun beats down on their backs. Dave listens to the rush of the waves below, running his fingers across the net. ‘The damn seal asked us for help,’ he mutters. ‘I think I need a drink.’

‘I think you deserve one, seal-whisperer. Come on, let’s head up.’ 

~~~

Beneath the waves, the baby swirls through the water and the selkie chases her down, swimming loops around her, saying  _ follow me, follow me.  _ It isn’t too far a swim, but she might tire if they don’t go straight away. 

The shock of the water has forced her to pay attention to him. She’s stopped crying for her mother. It takes some more nudging, but soon enough she follows obediently. She nestles close to his side, riding easily through his slipstream. 

As they swim, he thinks about what just happened. It was possibly the most reckless idea he’s ever had. Hearing the shouts of laughter of the humans back at the cove, he was struck by inspiration, picturing their slender fingers so like his own, believing for a moment that this similiarity might mean they would want to help the pup too. So he led them straight to her on a manic whim. And they’d loomed over her, touching her with their bare hands, talking with words he could almost understand but not quite, not while snug in his sealskin. He’d started to fret that they were plotting, that they were going to steal her away, take her pelt for their own awful purposes - and that would kill her where it would not kill him. 

But that didn’t happen. They set her free and let her go. 

The selkie thinks about the man who did it, the same one who startled the colony. Today he looked into the man’s eyes and the man looked back, quiet, nothing about him speaking of hunger or greed, no sharp teeth nor strange metal claws, defying everything the selkie has ever been taught. It is the closest the selkie has ever been to one of the others, and now he’s away, he's begun to savour the thrill of it. Finds himself wondering - perhaps if he had not been so concerned for the pup he might have swum closer, might have brushed up against the human’s legs if only to know what they felt like for one short moment. If only to see what the human would do. 

It’s foolish thinking. He tries to push the idea from his mind.

The short swim comes to an end as he and the pup reach her home. He leaves her on the shore upon seeing her mother bounding through the cresting waves.

~~~

Eudora’s week long stay comes to an end much too quickly.

On her last night, Patch helps him lug firewood inside. They roast marshmallows together and drink hot chocolate spiked with rum. They play one-on-one monopoly, an ancient version of the game left here by the last lighthouse keeper, and give up very quickly when they both end up in jail for speeding. Instead, they put on some of the records Patch has brought him, dancing and singing into the night, tipsy and exuberant. 

At one point, Patch puts her hand on his chest, stopping him in the middle of his interpretation of the one-legged tango.

‘I forgot!’ she exclaims. ‘I brought you something else too.’ 

Dave stumbles, forgetting to put his other leg down. ‘Oh?’ 

‘Come on, it’s in my bag!’ 

She tugs him down to the guest room, and rummages through her suitcase, pulling out a chunky box that rattles as it moves. 

‘There you go,’ she says, passing it to him. ‘It’s absolutely against my better judgement giving it to you, and strictly under the table, of course. But I thought you deserved a bit of a treat.’ 

He looks at her curiously, eyes lighting up. ‘What is it?’

‘Look inside.’ 

Dave pulls the lid off, revealing a treasure trove of newfangled electronics - alarms, transmitters, remote control cameras. And that’s only the stuff he recognises. He whistles, long and low. ‘Holy shit, Patch. How the hell did you sneak this out?’ 

‘The guys intercepted an anonymous shipment. Real shady. I might’ve nicked a box before they were counted.’ 

He laughs, incredulous. ‘You’re incredible.’ 

‘I know I am,’ she says, all smug. Then she pokes him in the arm. ‘Just don’t use it for any illegal shit, okay? There’s some dodgy stuff in there, but I trust you. That’s the only reason I’m giving them to you in the first place. They’re strictly for pulling apart and putting back together.’

‘Oh, don’t you worry - that’s the fun part.’ He picks up one strange object that looks like a night-vision visor, holding it up to his eyes and peering over at her. ‘Oh man. This is so damn  _ cool! _ ’

‘Ugh. You nerd.’ 

Dave grins wide. Then a thought strikes him, one that makes his blood run cold, and the smile slips away. ‘You said an anonymous shipment?’ he asks, putting the visor back into the box. 

Eudora stops smiling too. ‘Yeah. There’s no trace. I know what you’re thinking, Dave, but there’s no way to be sure it’s him.’ 

He runs his tongue over his teeth, thinking. ‘It’s the only place I’ve ever seen stuff like this before.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘You haven’t found any more leads?’ He doesn’t look at her as he asks it, voice low.

‘No. But I’m still looking, I swear. We’ll get to the bottom of it one day.’

He shakes his head, trying to be brave. Just pull out the prickle, he thinks. Get rid of the hurt and move on. ‘I know it’s a hopeless case.’

‘Dave -’

‘No, I mean it. I know it is. And you… you don’t need to waste any more time on it. It won’t make any difference.’

‘Hey,’ she says, coming to sit next to him on the bed, her hand on his. ‘It’ll make a difference to me. Besides, it’s an ongoing investigation. I can’t just drop it.’ 

‘There’s no evidence,’ he says weakly. 

‘There _is,’ _she retorts, ‘and I’m going to find it, okay? He destroyed your life, Dave! Forced you out to this island in the middle of nowhere. That’s not something I’m gonna let pass me by.’

He places her other hand on top of hers. ‘I don’t want you throwing away your career because of me.’ 

‘Well, if I can’t help you with this, then I don’t want the fucking career.’ She softens. ‘It’s not like this is the only thing I’m doing. I know my stuff.’

‘That’s true,’ he admits. Swallowing roughly, he pats her hand then gets up and puts the box on the dresser. ‘Sorry.’ 

‘Don’t apologise.’ The bedsprings creak as she stands up, and she laughs a little. ‘I swear I didn’t mean to bring this all up by giving this stuff to you.’

He side-eyes her. ‘I believe you. Maybe.’ 

She lugs his arm over her shoulders. ‘Come on. Let’s go make more smores.’

Eudora left in the morning, Hazel bringing the boat in a week earlier than normal as a special favour. Dave waited on the wharf as they motored on out, waving. 

Now he kneels on the hearth, striking a match and lighting the kindling. The nights here are chilly. The fire, once it is bright and dancing, will bring a spot of life into the room. As it should.

He does the rounds before heading up to the lighthouse. Makes sure the chickens are in to roost, that their hutch is still secure. He throws his two goats some scraps from his dinner as a special goodnight treat, scratching them between their little horns as he looks out at the setting sun. 

Although the island is never truly quiet, it seems to be silent and still in Patch’s absence. She isn’t a particularly loud woman, but even just hearing her clatter about in the house has been nice. Laughter suits the island. 

The moon is already rising in the paling sky, full and round. He sets off up the path to get the light ready. 

Late in the night he wakes to whispers of laughter on the wind. He wonders what Patch is doing outside before remembering that she’s returned home, that he won’t see her for months. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that a mysterious backstory emerging??? With MY Dave??? More likely than you'd think
> 
> (If I want to be geographically accurate then these selkies probs look like harbour seals, BUT I can't stop myself from imagining them as NZ fur seals... just... they have LITTLE EARS ?!??? oh god my heart)


	3. The Seal

Hiding behind a rock, the selkie peeks out to watch the human wade into the water. It’s funny - he sheds almost all of his skins  _ before  _ swimming, something he also happens to be terrible at, barely making it out of the shallows, embarrassingly slow. With all the splashes he makes, the selkie figures the man is playing, or at least trying to alert half the ocean to his presence. He has scared all the tiny nibbling fish away. 

The selkie sinks below the waves and stealthily swims up to the human. He lurks behind kicking legs and lets the bubbles tickle his whiskers, amused by the jerky movements. Then, becoming bored of that, he curves beneath the man, rolling onto his side as he does so, his flipper brushing ever-so-lightly against his chest. 

That’s a mistake. The man flails, stopping mid-stroke, a stray arm plunging down and whacking into the selkie. 

He shoots away in fright, scuffing along the sea floor, looking back to make sure he isn’t being chased. Not that the human could ever dream of catching him, being slow and ungainly where he is sleek and streamlined. But the man is frozen, his head above the water, legs kicking only slightly to keep himself afloat. 

The selkie isn’t as fearful as he should be. Even if he was generally unsure of the intentions of the other-people, this man  _ did  _ save the pup and pretty efficiently too. The selkie went back to see the baby the other day and she nuzzled him happily while her mother watched, gratitude radiating from her whole being. He should have left it there, been content with a job well done, and moved on with his life. Any of his siblings would have done exactly that. But he hasn’t been able to shake his curiosity towards the human, so he’s spent every day of the past week lurking in the shallows of the light island, spying on him - the man routinely comes to swim around midday, when the day is at its hottest. All that watching has encouraged the selkie to forget most of his inhibitions. 

After a few long moments, the man begins to quickly swim back to shore, halfway to frantic. The selkie, suddenly mischievous and daring, speeds up to the surface, popping up right beside him. 

‘AGHH!’ 

With the man’s yell the selkie slips back beneath the water, startled again, but he doesn’t stay under for long. He pokes his nose out.

The man is in shallow enough water now to stand with it up to his chest, and he blinks with big wide eyes at the selkie. He says something very quiet that sounds like, ‘Please don’t eat me.’ The selkie has to concentrate very hard to make out the words in the odd language of the other-people, although now that he isn’t stressed it is marginally easier than it was last time. 

He isn’t sure if he heard it right anyway, because that makes no sense at all - why would he ever want to eat one of  _ them?  _ If only he could slip out of his skin and talk back. 

Instead he settles for the good old non-verbal: he ducks into the water, letting his mouth fill up, then spits it out into the man’s face. 

The man jolts back in shock, spluttering, before bursting out into incredulous laughter as he wipes the water out of his eyes, and the selkie feels as pleased as the pup that caught the first fish. 

The man says something else. His voice is warm and deep. He is watching with his teeth bared as the selkie swims to and fro like an eel, not daring to go so close again, yet not really wanting to swim away. He’s fast losing the rush of recklessness that goaded him nearer and nearer to the man, and it doesn’t take long before he is bored.

With one last glance the selkie dives away, heading for deeper waters where he might find a tasty lunch. 

~~~

Dave would be a fool not to make the most of swimming in his free moments. The beaches here are rugged and beautiful, and he has always loved being in the water. However, he does find himself heading down to the little cove more often than usual. 

It’s that damn seal’s fault. 

He is certain she is the same one from the day he and Patch rescued the baby. There is a particular pattern of speckles on her belly which he now recognises, and something in her shining black eyes that is unlike any other animal he’s ever seen. She’s intelligent, wonderfully so. She is also - to put it lightly - an absolute  _ asshole.  _ He really should have realised this when she turned up for the second time, giving him the fright of his life and then having the gall to spit in his face. But it takes a few more meetings, and much more of her mischief, for him to definitively decide that she’s a gremlin. 

Dave loves her.

She is at the cove more often than not and has gotten braver and braver each time. While before she lurked timidly with only her nose and eyes poking out of the water, slipping past him so quickly that all he could feel was the rush of water before she was gone far away again, nowadays she bumps into him and nudges at his fingers and trips him up by tangling in his legs. She lets him run his fingers across her sleek fur, though she’s nipped at him a few times too. 

Right now she’s herding him out into the darker, colder water. His feet can only just reach the ground if he stretches. She is very persistent. If he tries to turn back she’ll splash him. 

‘I can’t swim out too far,’ he says over a mouthful of saltwater. ‘I’m not a pro like you.’ 

She wheezes, then ducks below the surface. Her vanishing act. She never seems to tire of it. 

Dave decides he’ll risk swimming back to the warmer shallows when suddenly he sees her rising up onto the beach, making a beeline towards the lunch he brought down with him.

‘Hey!’ he yells, speeding after her. 

She is slower on land, her body now big and awkward, but she still bounds up the sand as fast as her flippers will let her, utterly determined. 

Dave runs as soon as he can, expecting her to lay waste to his sandwiches, but no - she is ignoring the bag. Instead, the seal stops right in front of his towel. She turns back as he skids to a halt, giving him one long pointed look, then flops with an enormous huff and a storm of black sand right onto the towel Dave so lovingly laid out half an hour ago. 

He stares, gobsmacked. ‘No... you didn’t… you absolute  _ menace. _ ’ 

She wheezes, blubber rolling - and although Dave is generally hesitant to ascribe human traits to animals, there is no way he can deny that she is laughing at him right now. She rolls onto her back, baring her stomach and blinking in a way that somehow manages to be both gloating and innocent. 

‘I can’t believe this,’ he says, laughing at the absolute insanity of it all. He sits down beside her. ‘You’re terrible.’ 

And now, to top it all off, the seal noses at his bag. Dave falls onto his back with an almighty sigh then reaches up, pushing her face aside to get in the bag. He rips his sandwich in half and chucks her the bigger piece. 

‘There you go,’ he says as she snaps it up. ‘That’s probably not very good for you.’ 

She doesn’t reply, of course. She’s a seal. A second later she is off, back into the ocean, leaving only a soaked, sandy towel and the smell of fish. 

~~~

Weeks pass. Fathoms deep, the selkie hunts with two brothers - just as they have for years upon years. Teeth glint white in the dark waters. Fish strain to escape. Thick blood flows, blooming out in rich and intoxicating clouds. 

With their bellies full, he and his brothers dance through the depths, forms long and narrow, flippers whipping them through the water. The selkie barely thinks of his daytime escapades alone with the human. With the push of deep water from all sides and the rush of the chase, he is as close to the nature of the seal as he will ever be. The other world seems far, far away. 

But dusk is falling up above. Tomorrow the moon will rise big and round, and when the night is full-dark they will dance on the shores once again.

Before then, the sun and the surface world will tempt him back to the cove, back to his dangerous new hobby playing with the human, back to the breakers, the halfway state, neither this, neither that. Caught between the tides: now holding breath underwater, now singing the ocean’s song on the sand. 

~~~

An early autumn chill is in the air when Dave finds himself at the beach once again, here for one last swim before it becomes too cold. 

He spots the seal dozing in the distance. She lifts her funny round head as Dave comes around the end of the path, scattering pebbles with his shoes. She barks and slips into the water, coming to meet him. 

‘Afternoon, Miss Chubs,’ he says, throwing her a few canned sardines. She devours them happily. ‘You’re getting fat, aren’t you? Or is it just a fine new coat for winter?’ 

He strips off his clothes, folding them neatly by his towel before diving right in, gasping with the shock of the cold. He swims freestyle for a bit to warm up, somewhat comforted by the sensation of the seal slipping past beneath him. Not so much when her whiskers tickle his toes, which she seems to know. 

Dave finds himself grinning, stretching out his fingers as she passes by again, closing his eyes to memorise the feel of her. It doesn’t seem real. Even after weeks of this, he can’t believe his luck. Patch thinks he is exaggerating in his letters, but no, this seal really does return to the cove to swim with him, and he with her. It’s thrilling. Magical, even. The sort of thing he imagines he’ll tell stories about when he is an old man, eager children sitting on his lap learning about old Dave’s friend the naughty seal. He’s never been a stronger swimmer. He’s never believed more firmly in the intelligence of animals. He almost feels like it was worth taking the lighthouse keeper job, worth the isolation, if only for this most unusual creature. 

Dave swims to the rocks, using the swell of the wave to pull himself out. The seal copies him; they both like the thrill of jumping off the rocks into the deeper water. He spares her a fond glance before moving to climb higher, out of the way of rogue waves, except the stone he places his foot upon is smooth and slick with clinging seaweed, and he is still twisted from looking at his companion, and when he inevitably slips his hands meet only with empty air. He falls. There is a sudden blinding pain, then everything goes black. 


	4. The Stranger

The sekie dives after the fallen man. 

He is sinking beneath the waves, face slack, a gash on the side of his head leeching blood. Panicked, the selkie swoops beneath him, trying to encourage him back to the surface. But the man isn’t moving at all. Knocked unconscious.  _ Please don’t be dead _ , the selkie begs, trying again to push him up to the air he knows the man needs, and needs soon with those weak lungs. When that fails, he seizes the man’s arm with his teeth and drags him up, trying not to pierce the soft skin but needing to grip tight. 

Eventually, he has the man’s face above water and can work on pulling him to the beach. In the shallows, the selkie lets go of the man for a moment and slips out of his skin, tossing it ahead of him onto dry land. He quickly grabs the man under the arms, lugging him out with a grunt - he is heavy, limbs scooping channels into the sand. 

Lying upon the ground, the man’s head rolls sideways, blood trickling down his temple. The selkie slaps his face, holds his ear close to the man’s lips, listening for life, and after a few long moments the man splutters, water coming out from his throat - the selkie rears back, hands hovering above the man’s chest, holding his breath in anticipation of the human’s own swell of lungs. 

And breathe he does. The selkie falls back on his heels, relieved. He rests a moment before remembering his pelt. Darting away from the human, he retrieves the supple mass and hides it in a hollow by the path, covering it with sticks and grass and pebbles. 

He stands tall. ‘Hallooo!’ he calls, hoping another human who lives upon the island will hear his cry and come to help. ‘Hallooo! Help!’ 

No one comes. He startles a nesting bird and that is all. 

Still panicking, the selkie goes back to the human. The head wound is shallow but bleeding a lot. He tries to wipe at it with sandy fingers which doesn’t seem to help. 

The man groans, slowly opening his eyes. He looks at the selkie, squinting against the sun. 

‘Who…?’ he croaks, before convulsing with a watery cough. ‘What?  _ Ow.’  _ He raises a shaky arm up to his head, fingers coming away red. ‘Ah, shit.’ 

‘Where are others?’ asks the selkie. ‘I can take you to them.’ 

‘What others? I don’t…’ He pauses, groaning again, trying to sit up. ‘I live alone.’ 

The selkie presses a hand against his chest to keep him still. ‘Alone? But the woman? I saw her. Once.’ 

The man looks pale, slightly green. ‘Patch? She’s long gone. Just me… now.’ He blinks hard, like there is sand in his eyes as well as his wound. ‘Are you - why are you… Who  _ are  _ you?’ 

‘A friend,’ the selkie says simply. 

‘A friend?’ he echoes. ‘I must’ve really… really knocked my head...’ 

‘It is bleeding.’ 

‘Yeah,’ the man says, dazed. ‘Sure is...’ The words stretch into one, and his eyes roll back in his head. The selkie sighs. 

~~~

Dave wakes up lying on the floor of his kitchen. The tiles are icy-cold on his bare skin. It’s getting dark, so everything is grey-toned and dull, and his entire head is throbbing. He wonders idly if he broke his skull, it hurts so bad. 

He doesn’t remember walking back here. The last thing he remembers is climbing onto the rocks in the cove. He must have slipped. 

Tenderly, he makes himself sit up, slumping over his legs. His arm is stinging too; looking down, there are puncture marks in the shape of a jaw. So his friendly seal has finally bitten him after all this time. 

Or, he thinks a moment later, perhaps his seal saved him. 

His own teeth are chattering now. He goes to get up and freezes upon seeing a stranger sitting cross-legged atop his dining table. A naked stranger. A dark-haired, lanky stranger. Perhaps the most beautiful stranger Dave has ever seen in his life, which is definitely not the reason his mouth drops open. (He blames the hit to his head. And also the fact that he hasn’t seen a man, beautiful or not, naked or not, in  _ months.  _ Apart from Hazel. But Hazel is a fisherman more sea-salt than man at this point, so he doesn’t really count.)

‘Um,’ Dave says. 

‘You were right,’ the stranger says, inexplicably. ‘No people. What is that, though?’ He points at Dave’s ginger cat curled up on the doormat. The door is wide open, letting in a chilly breeze. 

‘My cat,’ he says, jumping mental leaps and bounds as he tries to catch up and figure out what the hell is going on. 

The man on the table nods solemnly. His hair is messy, falling across his forehead in half-curls, and his face is narrow, angular. Because it’s getting dark, his eyes are in shadow. He is very still, watching Dave without pretence, without self-consciousness. 

‘Uh… aren’t you cold?’ Dave ventures. ‘Don’t you have any… Do you want some clothes?’ 

The man cocks his head in confusion. 

‘You’re naked.’

‘Oh,’ says the man. ‘Yes. I needed legs to get you here.’

‘Legs,’ he says faintly. 

The man nods, grabbing his toes and lifting his leg up in the air, showing it off. 

‘Right,’ Dave says, keeping his eyes on the man’s face. ‘Well. I’m Dave.’

‘Dave,’ he echoes. 

‘What’s your name?’ 

The man says something indecipherable. It is a harsh sound, starting with a crack, ending with a hiss. 

‘Sorry?’ 

He makes the same sound again, like a wave breaking. Dave frowns and tries to say it back. It comes out rather like, ‘Klahusss,’ which isn’t anywhere near what the man said. He immediately tries again, determined, hearing the sound perfectly in his mind but getting worse and worse with each attempt to say it aloud. He feels his cheeks going red. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I can’t say it.’ 

‘Say the last one again.’ 

‘Klaus?’

The man nods happily. ‘I like that.’

‘But it’s not right,’ Dave protests, trying to get to his feet at the same time, grabbing onto the nearby counter for balance when he goes dizzy and lightheaded. 

The man gets down from the table and slides his arm around Dave’s middle, helping to hold him up; he is strong, his bare skin warm and soft against Dave’s. He murmurs in Dave’s ear, ‘I have many names. I choose that one. For you, it’s right.’ 

Dave feels more than slightly delirious. He is shivering, so he leans into the man’s - Klaus’s - warmth. It’s radiating from him. Maybe Klaus has been swimming too, because Dave could swear he smells like the ocean up so close - like sea breeze and salt and seaweed. It should have been bad but it isn’t. It’s in balance, somehow. 

Klaus’s face is very close when he asks, ‘Where are you wanting to go?’ 

_ Anywhere you’ll take me,  _ Dave thinks, by some stroke of luck not actually saying it aloud. The stranger’s eyelashes are dark and thick. Stupidly long. Dave stares at them, bewildered and entranced, unable to tear his eyes away. 

Klaus frowns, gripping him more firmly around the middle with one arm so he can wave the other in front of Dave’s eyes. ‘Are you in there? Is your head broken?’ 

Dave blinks. ‘Um. You need clothes - a blanket. I…  _ I _ need a blanket. Pyjamas.’ 

‘Where are these things?’ Klaus asks softly.

‘My bedroom,’ he replies, pointing at the hallway. ‘That way.’ 

Klaus lets Dave steady himself on his shoulder as they go. 

There is a red woollen blanket on his bed which he picks up first, holding it out to Klaus. ‘Here you go. Wrap up in this.’ 

Klaus takes it and Dave quickly slips off his swimming shorts, pulling on his pyjama pants. He turns back to Klaus, who is holding the blanket as far from his body as he can, pinched between forefinger and thumb, a horrified expression on his face. 

‘Are you okay?’ Dave asks. ‘Is there something wrong with it?’

His voice is low and quiet. ‘I don’t wear the skins of others.’ 

‘What?’

‘This,’ he hisses, shaking the blanket. ‘Which poor creature has had you stealing its coat?’

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘I mean where did this come from? Which creature?’ 

‘Oh… a sheep, I guess. It’s wool.’ 

A myriad of expressions flit over Klaus’s face. There is outrage, plain as day, and something mournful, and perhaps a flash of fear too. His mouth goes thin. 

‘I can get you something cotton if you’d prefer that?’ Dave offers. 

‘I do not wear others’ skins,’ Klaus repeats, dropping the blanket onto the floor. 

Dave sits down on his bed, feeling woozy. ‘I don’t get it. Have you just… not worn clothes before?’

‘Of course I have,’ Klaus says scornfully. ‘I have my own. Not  _ stolen. _ ’ 

‘But mine aren’t stolen either.’

‘I mean the sheep!’ 

‘What sheep?’ 

‘The sheep you stole-’

‘I haven’t ever stolen a sheep!’ Dave splutters. ‘I don’t even have any sheep. I have goats!’

They stare at each other for a long moment, both equally irritated and lost. Dave’s head aches and it suddenly hit him how odd this all is. He is utterly perplexed. There is some kind of miscommunication going on, but he can’t make sense of where he is going wrong, or what exactly the man is accusing him of apart from livestock theft - which doesn’t make things any clearer. In fact, the longer this goes on, the more certain he is that he’s hallucinating. 

He forces himself up and retrieves his dressing gown, made from blue flannel softened with use, from the hook on the back of his wardrobe. ‘Here,’ he says, holding it out. ‘It’s cotton. Made from plants. No animals involved. No stealing.’

Klaus peers at it, bending over with his face close to the pattern. ‘Really?’ 

‘Yeah. I promise.’ 

Klaus grabs it off him, running his long, slender fingers over it before bringing it up to his nose to sniff. 

Dave feels his face going red. ‘Sorry, it’s not freshly washed. I can get you something clean, I just… didn’t know what would fit.’ The man is so slender and narrow, with bony shoulders and long, long legs. 

Klaus answers by draping the fabric over said bony shoulders, missing the sleeves, the gown hanging open. It’s endearing, but it looks like it’s about to slip right off.

‘Here… let me,’ Dave offers, pulling it back and guiding the man’s arms through properly. His limbs are loose, going easily wherever Dave moves them. Once it’s on he ties the belt; Klaus stands as still as a statue as he does so, and while Dave crosses the ends over, he glances up to find the man staring inquisitively at his face, gentle-eyed. 

Dave stops moving, halfway done tying the knot. 

‘Plants?’ Klaus murmurs, pinching the fabric of Dave’s pyjama pants momentarily before raising his hand, the wide sleeve of the gown bunching up at his elbow. His fingers graze against Dave’s cheek with the lightest touch. 

‘Plants,’ Dave affirms breathlessly, which is when he realises that he has in fact stopped breathing.

With a shaky inhale he tugs the knot taut and steps away from Klaus, hands on his hips, looking out the window. Dusk has fallen across the bay. ‘It’s getting dark,’ he remarks. ‘I should get a fire going. Get some dinner on. Are you hungry?’ 

Klaus nods.

There’s still something bothering Dave, something that he’s forgottten. He can’t put his finger on it. The stranger, the probable concussion - all of it together has thrown him off. 

‘Is something wrong?’ Klaus asks. 

‘No... I just feel like I need to… I need to…’ He freezes. ‘Oh,  _ fuck.  _ The light.’ 

Without a moment’s hesitation, he darts out the door and back along the hall, slipping his feet into his boots and running outside. With each stride up the hill the ache in his head worsens, like his brain is battering against his skull, and he presses his fingers up against his temple as his eyes water uncontrollably. 

Halfway up he has to stop, a wave of nausea taking hold of him. He needs to be lying down. Eyes shut, body still. Gritting his teeth, he takes a few deep breaths, leaning over with his hands on his thighs. The whole world seems slightly hazy, the ground snaking and shimmering beneath him - and whether that’s the dusk or him he can’t quite tell. 

He doesn’t hear footsteps over the rushing blood in his ears, and he jumps when Klaus’s hand touches his shoulder lightly. 

‘Dave?’ Klaus asks, blue-checked gown flapping around his legs. ‘What are you doing?’

Dave points at the lighthouse. ‘Need to get up there. Fast.’

Klaus doesn’t even hesitate. He pulls Dave’s arm over his shoulder like he did in the house, already walking Dave up the hill as he says, ‘Come on. Not far now.’ 

It feels like he has to walk a mile through sticky mud, his vision blurred and head pounding by the time they begin to ascend the stairs up to the light. Klaus is holding up most of his weight by this point, making soothing sounds interspersed with encouraging ones. 

Once they are up he gently brushes Klaus off him, murmuring his thanks, and goes about setting the light. Every step is ingrained by routine. It is the only reason he manages to get through it all. His head simply isn’t working right. He needs to sleep desperately.

He feels relief flood through him as the light begins to burn. Behind him, Klaus gasps. 

‘It’s you?’ the strange man says. ‘You make the light?’ 

Dave lowers himself onto the floor. ‘Yeah,’ he mumbles. ‘I’m the lighthouse keeper.’

Outside, a gull soars through the beam, screeching out its homing cry, a dark-winged silhouette. The floorboards creak. Klaus kneels beside him, fingers brushing across his forehead, then they move down, skirting around the gash on the side of his head. Dave shuts his eyes, shivering with cold and nausea.

‘Please don’t touch anything,’ he says. ‘It’s against… against protocol.’

‘I won’t,’ Klaus replies. ‘Don’t worry. You can rest now, Dave.’ 

As he sinks into unconsciousness Dave feels the other man shuffle closer, radiating warmth.

~~~

Dave wakes up on the floor of the light room, completely alone. 

He groans, putting a hand to his head as he sits up, feeling the crust of dried blood. It is early morning, perhaps just past dawn. He slept the whole night through, and thankfully the light is still burning. 

The strange man called Klaus is nowhere to be seen. Disappointment swells in his gut, and then confusion. He seemed so real. 

Dave goes about extinguishing the flame, cleaning the lens, and pulling the curtains that encircle the tower. As he works, Dave decides that the man was definitely a hallucination: in his impaired state he created a figure to guide him through duties he couldn’t manage alone. It makes him cringe, though, that he thought up an eerily beautiful, touchy-feely naked man as the best figure to help. 

He sighs, trudging down the stairs. Patch is right. He needs someone out here with him. That’s probably a big sign from his subconscious. He sighs again.  _ Definitely _ a sign. 

He shuts the door of the lighthouse firmly, goosebumps breaking out across his bare chest as the crisp morning breeze snakes around him. Then, as he turns, he sees something which forces him to stop in his tracks. 

Right there, draped over the small wall that lines the path, is his dressing gown, the fabric fluttering in the wind. Dave picks it up. It is cold; slightly damp from the morning dew. 

Distantly, one of his roosters crows. He folds the gown over his arm and makes his way back to the house, suddenly ravenous, questioning himself all over again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proper concussion treatment? I’ve never heard of it and neither have these two.   
Also Dave in every universe is just: *sees a mysterious naked stranger* * immediately falls in love*


	5. The Hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for reference to hunting/injuring animals

The selkie races through the water with his pod. His brothers and sisters are narrowing in on the shoal, fierce concentration in every fluid movement. He has never been the best hunter, but he is particularly atrocious today, and his shy sister keeps nudging him, asking _ are you with us? _He isn’t really. Muscle memory is keeping him in line with the others while his thoughts are off in another world. On the island with the light. With the human called Dave. 

He feels strangely bewitched. Perhaps it is the other-people magic. He is surprised his family cannot smell it on him. 

Accidentally turning the wrong way, lost in thought, he narrowly misses colliding with his biggest brother. That earns him a snap of the jaws right up in his face. _ What’s wrong with you?! _

He doesn’t want to fight so he slips out from beneath that brother, swirling in a corkscrew down, down, down into the deeps. 

He rejoins them on their favourite beach in the evening. Clambers onto the sand and flops down where they rest with an enormous huff.

His quietest brother noses his side, saying, _ I missed you _ , while the pup looks at him questioningly. _ Where do you keep swimming off to? Why did you not play with us under the moon? _

The selkie lays his head flat on the sand, subdued, not answering. 

Somewhere nearby, the engine of a boat hums. Sharp-toothed brother rises up and glares at it. There is a pale scar on his face from such a boat and its menacing propellers. 

There is a hunter who sails these parts, who doesn’t care to slow down when they are about, who shoots darts that make them and their seal brethren woozy and sick. The selkie and his family are quicker, wilier, and do not let the hunter lug one of their own away, even if their skin is bitten by the spiky metal spines, even if they cannot swim on their own. The other seals, though - they are often too slow. Some bring back horrible stories. Some never come back at all.

His bold sister whines. _ We should move. _

_ It might not be him, _ suggests his other sister. _ We need to rest. _

The selkie agrees, grumbling without moving his head up from the sand. He has swum too long. All he wants is to lie still and think about hands and fingers. About strange blue skins formed from plants. About the human who makes the light, and how he looked at the selkie so differently from all the other times they played together. He knows the man does not recognise him without his sealskin. It amuses him. 

He wishes he stayed on land longer. He had no real reason to leave as soon as he did, having already missed the moon-dance with his family. But as dawn neared he began to drum his fingers on the floorboards, paranoid that his poorly hidden skin was missing. Eventually he crept away, leaving Dave to sleep. He shed the borrowed cloth as he descended the stairs, dropping it over the wall, before sprinting in the grey-light down to the beach.

The skin was untouched. He was so overjoyed to find it that he ran splashing into the water and slipped it straight back on. The sea rushed cold and clean against his fur, making him shiver all over with happiness. But a moment later there was a sinking in his stomach, like he’d been tossed by a wave too roughly, too far, and he let out a keening wail, slowly drifting back to the shallows. He tried to change, wanting to go up there again, to walk on two legs, to be near the human whose name was Dave. But of course he was unable to turn back. The tides had turned, the moon had begun to wane, and the light in the tower on the hill was gone. Before abandoning the cove altogether, he keened once more, raw with regret and the sting of his own idiocy. 

Now, on the beach with his pod, his strongest brother makes a low, rumbling sound. A warning. _ He’s coming in closer. Pup, Slippery-one, swim with me and Big Sister. Sharp-tooth, swim with the others. Be fast. Be stealthy. _

The water isn’t far. Once they are in they swim low, giving the boat as wide a berth as they can, but this cove is their favourite for a reason: the mouth of the bay is narrow, with outcrops of rock that curve around, offering shelter. The very same rocks pose a trap now. The boat is positioned right between them; to get out of the bay to the safety of other shores they must swim beneath it. 

The boat looms above them, the hull a dark shadow adorned with barnacles. Fixed to the very bottom is a dark object jutting out like a fang. There is a light on it that flashes red. It scares the selkie and he tries not to look at it as he swims past, keeping close to his bold sister who looks back at him, checking he has not slipped away again whether by his own choice or by accident. 

_ Don’t look, brother-mine, _ she urges. _ Keep close. _

He blows air out through his nostrils, a frothy stream of bubbles. _ I know. I am. _

The boat’s motor goes still. The selkies tense but keep swimming past it, almost out to open sea. Then, with a zap of lightning that stings them all like they’ve accidentally tangled up with a jellyfish, a small black arrow shoots out of a hole in the boat that wasn’t there a moment ago. It slashes through the water, moving like it has a mind of its own, straight towards his strongest brother who thankfully dodges it by whipping himself around with little grace. 

The zap gets them all again as another arrow shoots out, then another, then another. The selkie’s skin feels hot, blistered, but he ignores that as one of the arrows heads straight towards him. He panics, swims away as fast as he can into the darker waters, winding back and forth like an eel in a way that makes his sides ache. It’s getting closer and closer, whatever it is. His siblings evade their own strange monsters in the same manner; he distantly sees the pup diving down to the ocean floor, racing as fast as his little body will allow, getting the thing to match his speed, going faster and faster and then swerving back up at the last possible moment while the monster drives itself into the rocks. The pup picks up a stone with his teeth and grinds it down on top of the monster until it emits a high-pitched whine. The selkie hears it from where he is beginning to dive, copying his smallest, smartest brother, but he is distracted by watching and a touch too slow, so the beast gets him, biting into his flesh. The selkie writhes, thrashing in the water. The thing is inside him and it _ burns. _He tries to bite it out but he can’t reach. 

Littlest brother swims up to him. _ It got you? _he asks, examining the wound where it entered. He tries to nibble at it, grabbing hold of the bit that sticks out in his teeth. When he pulls it does not give, and the selkie jerks in blinding pain. 

The other two join them. They’ve crushed their own pursuors, copying the pup, and now they nuzzle close to the selkie, comforting him. _ We’ll get it out. We’ll look after you. _

He’s exhausted but not groggy. It’s merely his own exhaustion from swimming all day and staring all night at the man called Dave. 

They make their way to a distant bay. The selkie is twitchy. He feels heavy, laden with metal in his side that makes swimming hard and moving on land even harder. 

They rejoin with the other three who made it out unscathed. All his family sleep in a huddle around him as he shakes in shock, whiskers brushing flippers, making soft noises of comfort. 

All the while the thing in his side flashes red like the light on the bottom of the boat. Even when his sisters sing a quiet song about a time when the oceans were calm and bountiful, they cannot banish the unease that has settled over them, their own toxic algae bloom.

~~~

Dave settles a beanie on his head and a thermos of coffee under his arm, and with his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets he heads down to the beach. He fiddles with the pull-tab on a can of sardines. He likes bringing the seal presents and hopes she’ll appreciate the snack even though they’re not freshly caught; he’s been rushed off his feet since a big storm tore up the western fence the other day and simply hasn’t had the time to go fishing. Everything on this island feels like it is holding on by a feather. 

She’s not there when he arrives, but he opens the can, setting it on a rock where the breeze will carry the smell, and pulls out a book. They’re hefty pockets. 

Half an hour later he hears her breaching the surface.

‘Hey, girl,’ he says softly, putting the novel aside. She’s the same as ever, sleek and grey and watchful. ‘You want some sardines?’ 

She splashes in the water. It looks like she wants him to come in and swim with her like they’ve done many times before, but the seasons have truly turned now and it’s only been a week or so since his accident; he’s not so sure it’s a good idea. He’s not afraid, as such. It’s more the risk. He can’t risk hurting himself by doing something stupid when he’s all alone, potential hypothermia and seal bites and who knows what else. Drowning.

The bite on his arm is scabbing over. He probably won’t get a scar, which is disappointing.

‘Sorry, chubs, but I can’t swim today,’ he says when she whines, batting her flipper. ‘Probably not for a while.’ 

He goes and crouches nearby, though, tin in hand, and waits for her to make her way up to him.

She moves oddly. There’s more of a lurch than usual. Dave frowns, wondering if she’s hurt somehow. When she’s neared, after he’s dangled a couple of tiny sardines in front of her nose which she sniffs hesitantly before gobbling up, he notices a little nub of metal poking out from her side. It looks like a tracking device - and an invasive one at that. The skin around it is puckered and angry looking. He’s seen birds and other sea animals with the things before, the proper ones from scientists, often comically antennaed but never actually hurting the creatures they’re attached to. 

‘Who’s gone and done that to you?’ he mutters. There’s a rush of fury on behalf of the seal, and he hopes that it isn’t his fault, that he hasn’t made her so accustomed to human contact that she trusted someone she wouldn’t have otherwise, someone who went on to hurt her. It’s a wonder she still came back to him, injured as she is. ‘Will you let me take a closer look?’ 

Dave’s hand hovers close to the device. The seal is distracted by the can of fish, so he first brushes his hand against the healthy skin so she doesn’t get a fright from his touch. Then he tentatively trails his hand up to the injury, as light as he can. The seal twists in discomfort, forgetting the food.

‘Hey, hey, it’s okay,’ he soothes, lifting his hands off. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ 

She levels him with a long stare before relaxing, turning her head away, leaving her side bared to him. He leans in close. If he presses his fingers to the angry skin around the device; he can feel where it sits beneath. It’s hooked in with a barb - getting it out would prove challenging, almost definitely hurting the seal in the process. Whoever attached this didn’t want it getting out and that makes anger prickle throughout Dave’s chest.

‘We need to get that out of you,’ he says. But he doesn’t have the skills. The seal will need to be put under or else she won’t cooperate, he’s sure of it. Dave doesn’t want to do that, but what he can do is use his radio, get an expert to come out on the boat. He’s confident he’ll be able to bring the seal back to the beach. She’s here often enough. 

Stroking the soft fur by her head, he says, ‘I’ll get right onto it, okay? I’ll do what I can. Sorry I can’t help you now.’

Later in the afternoon he sends a message out on his radio, and by evening a local vet is set to come out with the next boat, three days from now. 

~~~

Day by day, the boat hounds the selkie and his family. How it knows where to follow them, they do not know. His family discusses at length what to do, arguing and biting and stewing in nervousness, while the selkie mostly stays quiet. At best all they can come up with is not staying still for long, so they move every day, even before they hear the rumble of the engine. 

As the wound begins to fester, the selkie cannot hunt. Thankfully, his pod brings him food. He feels feverish and spends far too many hours sleeping, every moment he can get. Somehow, he still drums up the energy to swim over to the cove at the light island, although he has to go slow; his pace is worsened by how often he stops to check that he’s not being followed, that the shadow passing over him was a cloud, not a boat. 

Today his mind is fuzzed over and murky as he swims. 

Dave has been waiting at the beach for him every day since he noticed the injury. The selkie initially hoped the human’s fingers would be able to get the cursed thing out, to no avail. Still, the man waits with his strange tasting fish and inspects the wound each day, never coming in the water deeper than his knees, murmuring things the selkie half understands. He never thought a human could be so gentle. 

The selkie barely bothers to raise his head once he reaches the shallows, letting the waves wash him closer. He is vaguely aware of the deadly hum of the boat, perhaps even two, their growling resonating through the water and into his bones. It’s far off into the distance, hopefully too far to follow him now, and he can see Dave coming down the beach. Dave won’t let the boat take him. The selkie closes his eyes, exhausted. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to travel much more today. It’s a sad, stifling thought. 

Then Dave is kneeling in the water. There is the smell of fish on his hands, like he’s been preparing the snack for the selkie, but his hands are empty and as the selkie blinks weakly up at the man’s kind face he sees worry in the shape of furrowed eyebrows. 

Dave says something to him, patting him soft and slow. There are footsteps - another person? But that doesn’t make sense. Before the selkie can turn to look, there is a smart stinging on his other side. The selkie wails, afraid, but Dave keeps patting him and saying quiet words, _ it’s okay, it’s okay. _

If only he could talk back, the selkie thinks. He would say:_ I don’t know what you are doing to me. I know I should flee while I still can. But I trust you. I trust you, my lonely human. _

Then, if he could talk, he would complain about how terrible he feels. He feels so, so terrible. Worse than he felt when he ate a bad octopus. He feels like death.

A woman with pale hair comes into view, crouching to check his eyes. He doesn’t lift his head from where it lies flat and listless. She’s quiet and careful like Dave, even though she was the one who jabbed him just now, he’s sure of it. She and Dave talk to each other, talk about him, when suddenly he feels sluggish and heavy and his eyes begin to droop, and he realises now that he has lost his chance to swim away. 

He listens to Dave’s deep voice and thinks for the third time, _ I trust you. _ It is his last thought before the poison-sleep takes him in its crushing grip. 

~~~

‘I didn’t think it was a normal tracker,’ Dave explains as Agnes inspects the infected wound. It has clearly sickened the seal. 

‘It’s not,’ she confirms. ‘They’re never meant to be invasive, and these barbs - they’re atrocious. You were right to call me in.’

They’ve pulled the seal out of the waves with some help from Hazel but it’s too heavy to take any further. Agnes has set up a pretty efficient vet station on the beach anyway, with Dave passing her tools when she asks. Hazel’s waiting back on his boat.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to get it out?’ 

‘Yes, but it won’t be pretty. Our poor, poor friend. He’ll be very sore when he wakes up.’ 

‘He?’ Dave asks, surprised.

‘Mhmm,’ Agnes says, concentrating on the scalpel in her hand. ‘He’s a bull, you can tell by his size and the shape of his neck. From the darker colouring too. But he _ is _a bit smaller than usual, so it’s an easy mistake to make.’ She flashes him a smile. ‘Pass me that needle there, would you?’ 

‘Huh,’ Dave says as he passes it over. ‘All this time I’ve thought he was a girl.’

‘You’ve seen him a lot, then?’ 

‘Yeah. She’s - _ he’s _\- been visiting the cove for a few months now. This is the first time I’ve seen something like this though.’ He gestures to the wound. ‘I mean, what kind of bastard does this? Excuse my language. I just… I don’t get it.’

‘Oh, I’m right there with you,’ Agnes says. ‘I’m already planning on putting out a notice in town. Hopefully that’ll be enough to stop them doing it again, or at least help someone else catch them in the act. It’s the work of a cruel mind. I hate to think why they’re tracking seals.’

‘Hunting, I assumed,’ Dave says gravely. ‘I do worry… She’s gotten so trusting of me. You saw how easily she let me touch her - touch him, I mean. I’m thinking that’s maybe why they got him.’ 

‘Perhaps. We do recommend people stay away from the seals living in these parts for that very reason. As well as danger to yourself.’

‘I did try, at first, but he kept coming up to me. Once he even saved me from drowning. I think.’ 

Agnes looks up from her work in wonder. ‘Oh, _ really? _That’s amazing!’ 

‘Yeah,’ he nods. ‘I know.’ Dave casts his gaze over the unconscious seal with those dark speckles, the thin fur starting to fluff up now that it’s dry. ‘You think he’ll recover alright?’ 

‘I think so. They’re hardy animals,’ Agnes says firmly, maneuvering the needle inside the seal’s injury, lining it up against the tracker. ‘I’ll clean the wound for now and give him some medicine, but if you keep an eye on him it should be fine. If he gets any worse just call me up, and we’ll bring him back to the clinic and administer antibiotics.’ She’s carefully pulling the needle and the tracker out as she talks, clearly a skilled multi-tasker. Dave holds his breath. ‘Aaand there we go,’ she says softly as the device is entirely removed. 

Later, he walks Agnes back to the dock where Hazel is waiting. There’s a bucket of freshly caught fish at his feet.

‘The poor fella will need some feeding up I’m sure,’ he insists, with a solid clap of a hand on Dave’s shoulder. 

‘Oh, how kind of you!’ Agnes says, smiling at him with admiration. A light blush colours Hazel’s cheeks, and Dave bites the inside of his cheek. 

He waves from the dock as the boat chugs away, then he heads back to the cove with the bucket of fish, where the seal is beginning to stir. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the absence of an actual war, I'm really putting these two through the wars aren't I? Lucky they can look after each other


	6. The Window

He sleeps at the cove on the light-island for four days. At first he is feverish, drifting in and out of consciousness. He barely wants to eat, but Dave brings him fresh fish to nibble on anyway. Mostly, he lies as still as he can, with little energy to move even the short stretch to the water. It’s only on the third day that he has the presence of mind to check the thing in his side, and when he twists to look he finds that it’s gone, the wound already beginning to heal over. The rush of relief he feels is so immense he has to shut his eyes and try not to tremble.  _ Dave,  _ he thinks.  _ Dave did this.  _

Later that afternoon he makes it to the water and swims until he tires - which doesn’t take long at all, but he’s hopeful now that he knows he’s regaining his strength. 

He can smell a storm brewing out at sea on the fourth day. After Dave comes down with his fish, the selkie bids him farewell before swimming away, going on the hunt for his family. They’ll be worried sick. He never stays away for this long.

Coursing through the waves, rejoicing in the blue, he finds them in a nearby bay and they envelop him, nuzzling him, tickling him with their whiskers and squishing close - never too roughly, though, as he whines when they bump his side.  _ Brother! We thought he got you! We feared you’d left us for good!  _

He feels warm with relief, bright with happiness, being back here with them once more. 

The pup investigates his side.  _ You got it out? _

_ I did,  _ he answers, rejoicing in the fact. And he did it himself, technically, by choosing to go to Dave. That’s all they need to know. It’s gone, good riddance - he’s alive and safe and so are they. 

They sing together as the storm arrives, rain beginning to hammer the surface, a thick fog descending. The selkie song is always haunting to those who overhear it, whether sung by human voice or seal. It wavers, high and keening one moment, deep and growling the next. Shivers run down spines and hairs stand on end. In sunshine, it turns the unsuspecting listener mute as they forget themselves, entranced, falling deep into reminiscence and wonder. In fog like this, it lures people into the water, hearts aching in search of something they will never find. And when thunder booms, the songs send sailors to madness as they throw themselves off the side of their boat. Memory is made solid, nightmares walk, and sorrows well up to the surface. But it’s not a siren’s song. They do not enchant with false promises, and they do not sing to anyone but themselves. It is their truest voice. They will never speak as clearly as they do when they sing. 

Tonight, as raindrops blister the surface of the ocean, our selkie sings his thanks. If only it could be heard up on Dave’s hill. If only the world would hold its breath for a moment so the sound might travel. 

Perhaps it does. Perhaps up on that very hill Dave feels a shiver come out of nowhere, hand in hand with a sudden understanding of his place in the chain of things, an immense feeling of smallness and greatness all at once. 

~~~

Favours can be simple deeds, but they are precious things not easily forgotten, not in one’s bones. Not when skin is scarred and blood is shed. 

How painful it is to have to wait to say thanks. Still, days tick on by. Eager excitement bubbles over, and when suspicious siblings ask  _ what is it with you recently?  _ and  _ are you seriously unable to stay still for one moment?  _ it’s so satisfying to shrug off their pestering and tell them,  _ it’s only that it feels so good to have that thing out of my side.  _

When the moment finally arrives, he waits until they’re distracted to slip away.

~~~

Dave is knackered. He’s been working in the garden all day. There’s plenty of autumn bounty - pumpkins and carrots and beetroot, as well as spinach that’s nearly running wild, somehow not yet battered into shreds by the wind. 

He comes back from setting the light, deciding to ignore the dinner he should be making in favour of lying on his bed and resting his eyes for a moment. 

He’s just about to drop off when there’s a tap on his window. First, his face twitches in sleepy annoyance. Then he sits up in alarm.

What he sees has him blinking hard. He can’t quite believe his eyes. There, with his palms pressed flat against the window, is the hallucination: the strange man called Klaus. 

‘Hello!’ he calls, full of exuberance even as his voice is muffled by the glass. ‘I have come to visit!’ 

Dave’s rooted to the spot. He manages a tentative, ‘Hi?’ 

‘Did you miss me?’ 

‘I…’ Dave starts, but he never gets to the end of that sentence. He stands up and goes to the window. The muscles in his legs ache but he barely notices, instead raising the sash up, and as it moves Klaus runs his fingers all the way down the glass before resting them on the sill, no doubt leaving streaks. He tilts his head, smiling sweetly at Dave, and Dave finds himself struck speechless. He can’t blame the concussion this time. In fact, now that his eyes aren’t watering with pain, he’s even more capable of staring gormlessly, and stare he does: Klaus is entrancing. The yellow light from Dave’s room is making his hair shine - it’s dripping with water like he swam here - and catching in his eyes. Big puppy-dog eyes. The longer Dave stares, the more sly they become. 

‘You like this face,’ Klaus says, smile turning sharp. Wicked. 

‘Uh,’ Dave replies eloquently, feeling his face getting hot as soon as he says it.

‘I always like your face.’ Klaus leans forward so his head is now in the room. ‘I like your funny crooked mouth. And your laugh makes me laugh.’ 

‘Yeah?’ he says, even though he can’t remember laughing after his accident, but then everything is a bit hazy from that day. Klaus’s intense stare isn’t helping one bit either. So Dave clears his throat and asks the only thing he can think to ask: ‘Do you wanna come inside?’

‘Yes!’ 

He jerks his head towards the kitchen. ‘Front door’s that way -’ 

Klaus is too busy clambering head first through the window to listen, tumbling down onto the floor. He lands in a pile, yelping, laughing. And yes, Dave notes, he is still completely naked.

Klaus springs to his feet, a far cry from nimble, and immediately asks, ‘Where is my pelt made from plants?’ 

‘Do you… do you mean the dressing gown?’ 

He nods eagerly. 

‘Oh, well - it’s there,’ Dave says, pointing to where it’s hooked on the edge of the door. 

Klaus wanders over and sweeps it off with a flourish. As he stretches, Dave notices a strange cut on his ribs, scabbed over, half-way healed. It vanishes in a flash of blue fabric; Klaus remembers how to properly put the robe on himself this time. He looks like he’s just gotten out of the bath, and Dave’s suddenly curious. 

‘Have you been swimming?’ he asks. 

‘How else do you think I got here?’ 

‘You swam _ here _ ? From where?!’ 

‘Another island.’ Klaus waves a hand idly, like he’s not just accomplished something equivalent to a marathon. ‘I’m good at it.’ 

He’s struggling with the tie again as he speaks, so Dave goes to him wordlessly, doing it up like last time. Their hands skim past each other. He can feel the other man’s breath on his face. 

‘I didn’t think you were real,’ Dave confesses. ‘After you vanished.’ 

‘I am.’

‘I know. At least, I think I know.’ His hands linger on the knot he’s tied. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s a bit hard to tell. Because, well - you’re very odd.’

‘So are you,’ Klaus says earnestly. He suddenly grabs Dave’s hand, circling his fingers in a strong grip. ‘I meant to stay longer last time. When you hurt your head.’ He’s inspecting Dave’s fingers now, peering at the short-cropped nails, pressing their palms together, measuring, matching. His hands are smaller than Dave’s. ‘This time, I’ll stay a while. It’s a long wait otherwise.’

‘You’re staying?’ 

Klaus smiles slyly. ‘I think you want me to.’ 

‘Oh, I-’ 

‘Or do you wish to make me swim all the way back again?’ 

‘No, not at all!’ he says hurriedly. ‘It’s - too cold. Freezing. Of course you can stay.’ Dave doesn’t know why exactly Klaus is here, or how he found him on this isolated island - he doesn’t really believe the swam-here excuse. But people don’t just appear out of thin air either. 

‘Wonderful!’ Klaus says, pulling him down the hall into the kitchen where they first met near on a month ago. ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you again for  _ ages _ . To thank you properly too.’ 

‘Thank me?’

‘Yeah!’

‘But why-’ he starts, but as he switches on the lights for the room, Klaus drops his hand only to grasp his own face with both, mouth open, staring at the bulbs in wonder. 

‘You make all these lights as well?’ 

‘Oh… uh, it’s just a switch. You can do it too if you like.’

With intense concentration, Klaus flicks it on and off, again and again. He laughs, light and airy. 

Meanwhile, Dave sets about finding ingredients for dinner in a strobing kitchen. He fancies a little bit of normalcy, and remembers offering a meal last time the stranger was here. He can make good on his promise tonight. ‘Is there anything you like to eat?’

‘Fish,’ Klaus says, moving on to running his hands over everything in the kitchen: cookbook spines, benchtops, the prongs of a fork, the silver ridge of metal along the top of the toaster. ‘Squid is tasty.’

‘Don’t have either of those, I’m afraid. Do you like chicken?’ 

‘I don’t know. What is it?’

‘A bird,’ Dave explains, which makes Klaus screw up his nose. 

‘Feathers aren’t good.’

‘I’ve taken the feathers off.’

‘ _ Really _ ? I didn’t know you could do that.’ Then, after a moments consideration: ‘Alright then. I’ll try it.’

Klaus starts humming as he explores the kitchen, a melody that makes Dave want to stop everything he’s doing and listen. In fact, he has stopped: he doesn’t remember placing the chopping board down on the bench, but now he’s staring unblinkingly at it, eyes tracing the swirling woodgrain, hands spread flat on top, and he swears that the darker lines are flowing like waves - laden and slow like they’re made of amber, of honey. He tastes icecream, remembers the sticky sweet drip of it down his chin on a sweltering afternoon, the relief of the cooling waves as they lapped around his feet, as he sunk slowly into golden sand. It’s a beach he visited as a child: the sun is beaming down on his back, his mother is calling to him from further up, waving his sunhat at him so that he’ll run back and fetch it, and his father is coaxing him further into the sea, showing him how to dive into the bigger waves, and the tide is going out and he feels the immense pull of the deeper water, wants to test how it feels to swim just out of his depth - 

His trance is broken up by a metallic clang as a knife drops to the floor. Klaus stops humming, jumping back like a startled cat even though he’s the one who pulled it out of the knife-block and promptly dropped it. 

Dave picks it up. ‘You alright?’

He eyes the knife. ‘Why do you have that?’

‘To chop things,’ Dave says, the echoes of the vision fading fast. He’s perfectly happy doing all this explaining, but all he can really wonder is how and why this man doesn’t already know this stuff. It makes no sense. His best guess is that Klaus has lived a very isolated life. More standard visions of wild people, Tarzan and the like, flash through his mind. He wants to ask Klaus for an explanation rather than presume, but he also doesn’t want to come across as rude, and he’s pretty sure that demanding why Klaus is ignorant of so many basic facts sits quite firmly in the latter category. 

‘Like what?’ 

‘Like this.’ He rinses the knife under the tap and demonstrates, slicing a potato in half. 

Tentatively, Klaus comes forward, steering clear of the knife as he snatches up the vegetable. He inspects the cut, runs a finger over it, sniffs it, then places it carefully back on the board. 

‘What else do you chop?’

‘Just food. Though I have an axe outside which I use to chop firewood, if that counts.’ 

Klaus gestures towards the knife. ‘Can I try?’ 

Dave passes it to him - and, all credit to him, he  _ tries _ to explain how to use it. It’s not his fault Klaus seems to have an ulterior motive. The simple explanation is quickly misunderstood, and it isn’t long until Klaus looks up at Dave through long, dark eyelashes, saying, ‘Show me how?’ A playful smile teases at corners of his mouth, and he doesn’t take his hand off the knife, so Dave puts his on top to show him where to place his fingers and thumb, how to control the downward slice. Klaus’s hands are soft, and he’s almost regretful when the impromptu lesson is complete and Klaus steps away. 

The questions and demonstrations continue as Dave cooks. He wonders if there’s a surface in the kitchen that Klaus  _ hasn’t  _ touched, and he ends up giving him a tea towel to settle him in one place, getting him to dry the dishes as they wait for their dinner in the oven. Klaus is deeply preoccupied in his task, drying every inch to a shine, and Dave has everything washed before Klaus has even gotten through the third dish. 

He doesn’t know how to use cutlery either. Dave catches him spying on his own method when they’re eating. He gives up and uses his hands intermittently, and while at first he picked at his food in distrust, he’s now eating happily.

‘Do you have any family, over on your island?’ Dave asks. 

Klaus nods, speaking around a mouth full of potato. ‘My brothers and sisters.’ 

‘I didn’t realise any people lived over there.’ 

‘It’s just us,’ Klaus says vaguely. Dave settles that aside to unpack later, more evidence towards his running theory that Klaus grew up separate from the rest of society. Maybe there’s an extreme hippie cult or something secretly living on one of the islands. It could explain the weird wool aversion he remembers from last time they met. And the nakedness. ‘Why do you live all by yourself?’ 

Dave shrugs. ‘It’s my job. They don’t need more than one person out here to manage the light, so why pay more than me?’

‘Don’t you get lonely?’ 

Dave clears his throat, glancing down at his plate. He doesn’t answer for a while; most people would pick up on his discomfort and change the topic or look away, but either Klaus doesn’t notice or he doesn’t feel awkward asking. 

‘Yeah,’ he eventually admits. ‘Yeah, I do.’

And Klaus doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t need to: the way he’s staring is enough on its own. Dave feels suddenly shy. Overexposed. Or perhaps he’s simply spent too long alone, and he’s forgotten what it means to hold a proper conversation, to open up those vulnerable parts of himself for others to examine. He wonders what Klaus is thinking. What conclusions he has drawn. 

As Dave washes the final dishes and dries those that Klaus left, he sees the other man reflected in the dark window: Klaus is leaning against the counter, still watching him, still wrapped in Dave’s dressing gown. He can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like that, so much held in a quiet gaze, intense and wanting. 

Between them the silence stretches, and he can hear his own breath and the scratch of the cloth on the plate he’s drying, and because he’s staring back he sees as Klaus comes up on quiet feet right behind him. His hands go still. They’re the same height - if there is any difference, it’s minute - and at first Klaus’s breath ghosts the side of his neck, a whisper of a promise, and a shiver runs up Dave’s spine. Klaus’s lips press to the vulnerable skin. Light touch, barely there. But even once his mouth moves away Dave can still feel it, the imprint, like it’s burning, like it’s singing out to be touched again, touches he’s been missing for far too long - and he barely thinks as his head turns, as their eyes meet, and then their lips, soft, soft, and far too brief. 

He doesn’t remember dropping the dish cloth but his hand is already coming up to caress Klaus’s face, brushing over the short, dark facial hair and the soft skin up on his cheekbones. Dave’s turned around by now, his back to the sink. Everything is golden under the yellow kitchen lights and his heart beats hard, craves more than just one kiss; Klaus’s lips are parted, and when Dave’s hand moves to the back of his head, pressing him closer, Klaus closes the small gap that’s left. It’s a proper kiss now. One to get lost in. One that stops time and speeds time simultaneously, moments measured in heartbeats. Perhaps it’s because Dave hasn’t kissed someone since he moved out here but he feels lightheaded, every bit of him that Klaus touches alight, and somehow as the kiss deepens they end up on his couch, hands on clothes, on skin, sweeping under hems and undoing bows, and Dave knows in the back of his head that even though he’s never been coy, something this fast is unusual for him. Yet it doesn’t really surprise him. He thinks some part of him knew this was going to happen from the moment Klaus tumbled into his bedroom. 

The fire is lit and its heat radiates across the room so that even though his shirt is crumpled on the floor, his back is warm. And beneath him Klaus is warm too, pliant, and he kisses so full-heartedly as his hands skate down Dave’s back, fingernails leaving constellations of crescent moons. 

Later, breathless, Dave settles to the side with his arms wrapped around the thin man. He hides his face in Klaus’s neck, a smile on his lips, slightly embarassed. ‘I don’t suppose this is what you had in mind,’ he murmurs, ‘when you said you wanted to talk.’ 

Klaus laughs. ‘The details were a bit hazy, if I’m honest.’

They’ll have time to talk later. But not now. He’s feeling too full and warm and heavy for that. Dave’s eyelids droop and for the first time in much too long he falls asleep with someone else in his arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know… sometimes you just have to let the strange man who invites himself to stay seduce you in your own kitchen… sometimes it’s just like that
> 
> (aksjkfksdj for real though i am v nervous about this chapter, please let me know what you think)


	7. The Scar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a longer one today my dears! i hope you enjoy <3

The selkie wakes to gentle fingers playing with his hair. 

He’s called Klaus in this body. It’s a name the human can pronounce, for one, and he doesn’t mind that it’s not quite right because he chose the other name for himself anyway, so he’ll choose this one just as easily for this man. 

Klaus opens his eyes and smiles sleepily at Dave who has a crease in his cheek from a cushion. His light brown curls are messy and soft-looking, and Klaus understands right then and there the impulse to thread his own fingers through them like Dave is doing to him. 

‘Morning,’ Dave whispers. 

‘Yes,’ Klaus says. Sleep has made this voice slightly croaky so he clears his throat. ‘It is.’

He’s never stayed until dawn in his other form. Never slept. Always before the tide turns he and his family will slip back into their pelts; only then will they sleep. He feels it now, the cramp in his calf which might be from being curled up in such a small space, or which might be from staying too long a leg and not a flipper. There’s an itch on his skin and a mental pull to the ocean, but it’s easy enough to ignore for now. He’s determined to stay for longer this time. 

‘Did you sleep well?’ Dave asks. ‘It’s a bit cramped, I know.’ 

‘Mm,’ Klaus hums. He stretches, feet dangling over the end of the couch, arms reaching out above his head. At some point in the night Dave must have draped the dressing gown over them both. His back arches with the stretch and his shoulders click, then he collapses back inwards and curls into Dave’s chest. 

Dave doesn’t let him hide there for long; he tilts Klaus’s chin up to kiss him on the mouth. Klaus smiles against him because he feels all floaty around this man, even more so than yesterday. Just like the songs all warn, he’s been bewitched - but Dave hasn’t even stolen his skin. He’s entranced Klaus with some other thing instead. Klaus finds that he doesn’t really mind. 

‘I’ve gotta go sort the light, turn it off,’ Dave says. ‘I’ll be back in a tick.’

Klaus nods, watching as he hops around trying to put his leg into his pants. Admiring. Dave is strong and tall. Skin still tanned brown from summer - he can tell because there’s lines where the clothes usually sit. And his face - oh, how Klaus loves his face. Especially now he knows how those lips feel on his, and how it feels to kiss his neck and his cheekbones and that bold jaw. He’s watched from the water before, but it’s not quite the same as it is looking with these eyes, touching with these hands. When he’s a seal, he’s more in wonder of Dave’s laughter and his kindness and all the silly human things he does. But now, while those things are still true, they’re pushed aside for the moment as he drinks in all the physicality, all the human allure.

He finds it so thrilling to stare like this, and have Dave actually look back. 

Dave is dressed in yesterday’s clothes now, and he’s about to head out the door. With his hand on the doorframe he turns back, asking, ‘You’re not going to vanish again, are you?’ 

Klaus shakes his head. ‘I have too many questions to leave.’ 

~~~

Outside, Dave’s breath fogs in the air. He feels more alive than he has in months. Every part of him hums, and he whistles a jaunty tune as he goes up to the lighthouse which seems prettier than ever perched on top of the hill, white paint bright, glass top shining. 

As he cleans the glass of the lantern until it gleams, he finds himself laughing. The whole situation is absurd. It’s unbelievable. It’s the sort of thing no one will ever take seriously no matter how much he insists it’s true. 

He’s not at all suspicious of Klaus, unusual as he is. There’s something so open about the man. Every emotion flashes across his face, is held in his eyes clear as day for Dave to read. Last night comes back to him in vivid flashes: hot breath loud by his air; clatter of cutlery discarded by buttery hands; the worn couch cushion rough on bare skin; rattle of the window as he pushed it upwards to let him in, and how he only came closer and closer as the night drew in. It’s a little bit terrifying to admit, but even yesterday’s briefest moments contain more life than most other evenings he’s spent here - perfectly adequate nights, all slipping together in memory into a featureless expanse. 

It was all so real. Unexpected, but welcome. It’s like Klaus knew exactly what he needed and offered it without hesitation. A sliver of doubt slinks in - it’s almost too good to be true - and he doesn’t like that idea, not at all, not when he’s craving more than just a brief taste, more than just a fever dream. 

Before heading back into the kitchen, he ducks around the back of the house. The early morning sunshine makes all the specks of dirt show up on his bedroom window, and right now there are long streaks going down right to the bottom: Klaus’s fingerprints dragged across the glass. 

He lingers for a moment, tracing them with his own fingertip, then he cuts back around to the front of the house, rubbing his mouth like that’ll hide the smile. 

~~~

Klaus pulls the soft dressing gown back on, fumbling a knot that is nowhere near as elegant as Dave’s bow but it’ll do. The first rays of dawn spill through the room. He leaves his perch on the couch and flits through the space, taking in as much as he can. 

Dave’s house seems to talk. When the wind blows, as it nearly always is, the walls shift and creak, like they’re murmuring in some ancient language. He feels contained. Held safe amongst its shelter. The walls are washed white, the floors strips of worn, honeyed wood. There’s things everywhere - he can’t tell what they are all for. Stacks of bright-spined things made of countless pieces of flimsy material, all covered in little black marks. Odd metal tools. Lights in  _ every _ room, each with their own switch. Pictures on a shelf, some with faces of smiling people, others with blotches of colour in different shapes and patterns. In one he spots a bird, long wings arcing, bright against brooding clouds. It’s a gannet, yellow splashed head, black tip wings. He knows them fondly. Where they dive into the sea in great numbers, fish are sure to be found. 

He wanders down the hallway. There’s a room off to the side with a sink like the one in the kitchen. He spins the taps and water comes out, fresh and clean, so he scoops it up in his hands and rubs it over his face, blinking through the drops, then rubs it on his neck and arms. Drinks it, big gulps, letting it run down his chin and splash on the floor. Then he idles back out into the hallway, one hand running down the wall, leaving a damp trail as he wanders into Dave’s bedroom. 

To his selkie eye, the house seems overflowing - but to a human observer it is neat and tidy. Some might even call it stark - a life lived with only the bare necessities. Everything inside had to be carted over by boat at some point, labouriously carried up the steep hill from the wharf, so every blanket, every chair and every picture frame is carefully chosen and well loved. Most show signs of wear: little nicks in the wooden legs of chairs where boxes have scraped; clothes patched over with scraps of fabric, darned with different colours of wool; pots with burnt bottoms that will never fully scrub clean. The windowsills are all freshly painted, sanded smooth beneath to keep them sealed, locking out the storms and the sea fog - the long line of keepers have looked after the house well. There’s only one window that jams when sliding up - it’s in the bathroom, where steam makes the frame swell. 

Klaus opens the wardrobe - it stands alone on the wall opposite the bed - and runs his fingers over all the clothes hanging inside. None seem to be skins. He doesn’t expect to find one, but he figures it is better to be safe than sorry. 

‘Exploring?’ 

Heart leaping, he turns around in a flash, trying to close the wardrobe door behind him as if there’s still a chance that Dave hasn’t noticed him snooping. 

‘No,’ he says, stupidly. 

Dave’s in the doorway. His hair is ruffled from the wind, and there’s colour in his cheeks from the walk outside. Klaus wants to look at him all day. 

‘Sure,’ Dave says, crossing his arms. There’s a smile pinching at the corner of his mouth, so he’s not mad. ‘Though I don’t mind if you do, by the way. You’re welcome to look around as much as you like. It’s not like I have any secret treasure hidden under the floorboards. At least, none that I know of. If you find some, let’s at least go halves, yeah?’ He winks at Klaus, before moving to the wardrobe and pulling out a small selection of things. There’s a little mark at the bottom of his throat which Klaus put there last night. ‘I’m just gonna have a shower real quick, then I’ll make us some breakfast,’ he says, folding the clothes over his arm. ‘Sound good?’ 

With his thumb Klaus reaches out, touches the mark. Dave goes still, looks at him like  _ that  _ again, like he’s forgotten everything else except for looking. 

‘Sounds good,’ Klaus replies. He steps in closer and brushes his lips against Dave’s cheek, ever so lightly. Then he steps away and goes to sit outside, somewhere he can see the ocean froth and crash against the rocks. 

They eat toast with crispy edges, almost burnt. Dave’s pieces drown in butter, whereas Klaus likes the thing called raspberry jam, licks it off the toast first before spooning more out of the jar. It’s like nothing he’s every tasted before. Tastes bright and zingy. 

He tries coffee, black. After the first cautious sip he spits it straight back out into the cup, and Dave laughs at him, says, ‘Knew you wouldn’t like it.’ It’s a bit better with milk. Much better with a couple of spoons of sugar. Not long later he feels very odd, and he jumps up and down on the spot, then darts around after Dave like some kind of sailfish, too fast for his own good. 

Klaus follows Dave around for most of the day, burning off that strange rush of energy. There’s plenty to be done. They hike up to the topmost point of the island, where Dave hammers a fallen post deep into the ground, bending the wire attached to the top back into shape. He helps him gather sticks for kindling, big poky bundles in his arms. Then while Dave collects eggs, Klaus croons to the chickens and although two come up and perch on his knee, they turn out to be beastly little birds. Rude gossips. Dave’s goats are much friendlier, though stupid. He feeds them out of his palm and it tickles. 

‘Do you get seals much round your island?’ Dave asks, watching Klaus with the animals. 

Klaus crouches so he’s eye to eye with the goat. Funny rectangular eyes. ‘There’s seals on all the islands,’ he says. 

‘There’s a real friendly one that visits here.’

‘Yeah?’ So Dave still hasn’t figured out what he is. Klaus isn’t sure whether he wants him to know or not. 

‘Yup. She’ll probably be there today. He, I mean. If you wanted to go and see.’ 

Klaus’s mouth twitches.  _ She.  _ Typical human. He stands up straight again, saying, ‘We could.’

Dave’s eyes light up and he smiles, all lopsided and sweet. 

They go down to the water anyway to measure the weather, or something. It’s a lot of words Klaus doesn’t recognise, and even though he’s speedily picking up the quirks of talking like a person, he’s not an expert at human jargon. Dave tells him it’s part of his job, shows him how the brittle, unnatural devices work. He does so sitting close to Klaus on the sand, their arms pressed together, hands brushing close, waiting for a seal that won’t ever show. 

Dave frowns after a while, the usual opened tin of sardines resting on his knee where it will catch the breeze. Klaus thought it’d be a funny prank, waiting for himself with Dave unaware. Now, as Dave’s disappointment grows, he just feels bad. He almost tells him then, but he doesn’t because he’s apparently become a coward. 

‘It’s okay,’ he says instead when Dave apologises. ‘Maybe he’ll come another day.’ 

‘I feel a bit bad about wasting the fish.’ 

Klaus holds out his hand eagerly. ‘We can eat them.’

Dave passes the tin over. ‘I don’t actually like them very much. Someone keeps putting them in my delivery anyway.’ 

‘Then  _ I’ll  _ eat them,’ Klaus insists. And he does. The whole tin, right there on the beach. It’s only fair; they are meant to be for him, after all. He licks his fingers clean.

‘You really weren’t lying about liking fish,’ Dave says, looking slightly concerned. 

By afternoon, miserable weather blows in, just like Dave told him. Klaus isn’t surprised; he’s been able to smell it on the air since the morning. 

It’s drizzling. Klaus slips out of the house and stands in it, relishing the cool dampness as it slowly soaks him to the bone. He’s never been dry for so long in his life. He’s still wearing the dressing gown - Dave tried to offer him other things, but he refused - and now it’s hanging heavy, dripping steadily onto his feet. He lifts his face to the sky and bares his teeth like Dave always does, feeling the speckles of rain, a peppering of cold kisses on his skin. 

‘You can’t wear that anymore,’ Dave argues. ‘It’s muddy, and wet. There’s other things you can wear.’ 

‘But I want to,’ Klaus says petulantly. 

‘Well, you’re gonna drip over everything.’ Dave passes him another bit of cloth. ‘Here. Dry yourself off.’ 

Klaus peers at it suspiciously. He really doesn’t want to be dry. But he also doesn’t want to upset Dave, and Dave doesn’t want puddles on his floor because apparently that’s just not what humans do. Strange, strange creatures. 

He reluctantly pats the towel against his skin - it looks like another one made from plants, so there’s that - and it  _ is  _ soft. Perhaps it’s not the end of the world. 

‘You’re allowed to use my shower, you know,’ Dave says, muffled. He’s pulling on a sweater. ‘It’s warmer, that’s for sure.’ 

Klaus ignores him in favour of glaring at the sweater. ‘Is that sheep skin then?’ 

‘Huh?’ Dave’s head pops out through the neck hole, looking exceptionally confused again, like he does whenever Klaus brings this up. He follows Klaus’s gaze. ‘Oh, come on. It’s not  _ skin. _ It’s just wool. Look, I’ll show you.’

Klaus follows him, curious, as he rummages through a cupboard in the hall. Dave pulls out a box and inside are oval balls of thin, colourful string. He passes one to Klaus. It’s soft and fluffy. It doesn’t  _ seem  _ like a skin, but then he’s also seen their pointy knives and other malicious tools, so he’s pretty sure the other-people could turn a pelt into this if they really wanted to. 

‘This is wool before it’s knitted,’ Dave tells him. ‘You get the wool from the sheep. Like a haircut. It’d grow too long otherwise, and it  _ definitely _ keeps its skin. I could even get wool from my goats if they were a certain type. They’d be perfectly happy.’

‘Oh,’ Klaus says. He touches his own hair. ‘Oh.’ 

‘Will you take that old thing off now?’ Dave asks, picking up a corner of the sodden robe. 

Klaus thinks about it, teeth biting into his lip. Then he nods. 

It’s evening again and Dave is laughing so hard he’s crying. They’re sitting on the floor in front of the fire, and at Klaus’s insistence he is showing him how the balls of wool transform into person-shaped items of clothing. It’s something Klaus has been wondering about all afternoon. 

It was going well for a while there, only now there is wool tangled all around his fingers, latching his hands to each other. There is no way he can pull his hands apart no matter how hard he tries. He’s meant to be holding the knitting needle in one hand as well but it keeps dropping to the floor because his fingers can’t move. 

‘I looked away,’ Dave wheezes, ‘for one fucking second.’ 

Klaus laughs too, and he moves his hands like crab claws up into Dave’s face. ‘Help. Me.’

Dave is still shaking with laughter as he unwinds the wool from his fingers, and when they’re free he presses a kiss to Klaus’s knuckles.

Klaus won’t ever get tired of being able to talk back properly when Dave says things to him, things that don’t even matter. He has so many questions; they flow out of him without pause. Lucky for him Dave is incredibly patient. He seems puzzled as to why Klaus is ignorant of so much, but also amused. Perhaps the reason as to why he’s so easygoing and welcoming towards Klaus has something to do with the fact that he can’t seem to take his eyes off Klaus whenever they’re in the same room. Klaus won’t pretend that this doesn’t please him. He knows Dave is lonely, savours every glance. He wants to be wanted. Wants Dave for himself too. He’s surprised by how much. 

A whole day has passed and he’s barely thought about his hidden sealskin at all. And by nightfall, once Dave has the lighthouse lit and has stopped dashing around like the busy bee he is, he’s even more distracted because Dave asks if he wants to go to bed. Klaus finds it funny - all that effort in the afternoon to get him into clothes only to take them off again. 

He touches Dave everywhere. He makes the other man moan. 

When Dave drags his tongue, tasting him; when he presses his fingers in - it makes Klaus want to sing . He feels music bubbling up out of him but it comes out as breathy laughter, as sighs. As Dave’s name. 

Just before dawn, Klaus wakes to Dave’s fingers touching him once again. They’re not tangled in his hair this time. They’re skimming his side, tenderly examining the skin around the gash. It is still healing, still painful when pushed too hard. Klaus shifts, making a quiet noise in the back of his throat, and he isn’t quite sure whether it means  _ stop touching it  _ or _ I’m awake now.  _ Too sleep-heavy to be certain, or to be too harsh. 

Dave’s hand moves away. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’ The roughness in his voice makes Klaus warm. 

‘It’s alright,’ he murmurs. 

‘Does it hurt?’ 

‘A bit.’ 

‘Sorry.’

Klaus shakes his head against the pillow. ‘Not from you. Hurts anyway.’ 

‘How’d it happen?’ The bed creaks as Dave shuffles closer, moving his arm so he can play with Klaus’s hair again. He keeps his eyes closed, enjoying the soft tickling feeling on his scalp. 

‘Got something stuck in it.’ 

Dave goes quiet. Klaus is falling back asleep when he says, ‘I’ve seen a wound like it before.’ 

‘Oh?’ 

‘That seal I told you about. He has one just like this.’

That gets his attention. Klaus opens his eyes and raises himself up on an elbow, the blankets gathering around his waist. Dave looks up at him from where he’s lying on the pillow, a furrow between his eyebrows. Gulls start to screech outside, hailing the rising sun. 

‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ Dave says, ‘but I can’t stop wondering whether… Well, I dunno.’ He turns away in embarrasment.

‘Wondering what?’

‘Never mind. It’s bullshit. Nonsense.’ 

‘I doubt that.’

Dave gives him a funny look. ‘You haven’t even heard my theory yet.’ 

Klaus doesn’t say anything, waiting for him to take the leap and ask. 

‘It’s just...’ Dave begins. ‘It’s really similar. The cut. Even the way it’s healing. And then there’s all the other things too. The no show at lunchtime yesterday... the questions… turning up out of nowhere, twice...’ He shakes his head. ‘There’s gotta be a perfectly normal explanation for it, because otherwise I think I’m losing my mind.’

‘You’re not losing your mind, Dave,’ Klaus says. ‘It’s the same wound.’ 

He makes a choking sound. A fter a while he says, carefully,  ‘You mean made by the same weapon, right?’

‘No,’ Klaus says softly. ‘The same. One attack. One injury.’ 

Dave rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Klaus waits again, watching him carefully, brushing his thumb back and forth over the scar his teeth left on Dave’s arm - it’s faint now, long-healed. His heart beats faster the longer the silence stretches. Eventually, he can’t stand it any longer. 

‘Sorry about this, by the way,’ he says, looking at the scar. ‘I tried not to, but it was kind of inevitable. You kept sinking.’ 

‘Kept sinking…’ Dave echoes faintly, eyes flicking to Klaus’s fingertips, then his mouth. 

‘Yeah.’ 

He starts to wonder whether this is a mistake. Whether he’s unwittingly walked into some kind of trap. Whether Dave might suddenly change now that he’s catching on, teeth turning sharp, eyes burning red, hands ripping and tearing where moments ago they caressed. 

But that isn’t what happens. Dave just seems unsure, not dangerous. ‘So are you saying…’ he starts. ‘Are you saying you’re the  _ seal _ ?’ 

‘Selkie,’ Klaus corrects automatically. ‘But yeah.’ 

‘Fucking hell,’ Dave mutters. He closes his eyes and runs his hands through his hair, pulling at his scalp. ‘A selkie? I have no idea what that is.’ 

‘It’s me.’ Klaus frees Dave’s hand and puts it against his face, saying, ‘See? Feel? Selkie.’ It makes Dave laugh - albeit strained. 

‘So, what? You turn into a seal?’

Klaus nods placidly.

‘Like some sort of shapeshifter?’ 

‘I guess.’ 

‘Can you do it whenever you want? Can you do it now?’ 

Klaus shakes his head. ‘Only on the full moon. Maybe on the day leading up to it too if I try really hard, like when you hit your head. Once it starts to wane, then no.’

‘But how, though? How do you do it?’ 

‘I just shed my skin,’ Klaus says, shrugging. ‘It’s easy.’ 

‘Your  _ skin _ ?’ Dave says, absolutely horrified. 

‘My sealskin.’ 

It’s all very logical to Klaus, and he’s surprised Dave doesn’t know any of this. He always figured that all humans know what selkies are, even if they don’t recognise them immediately. How else would they know when and how to strike? 

Dave gapes at him. ‘But… fuck - doesn’t that hurt?’ 

‘A bit. It’s like a good stretch. Kinda nice, even. We’re meant to do it, to change, so it’s not, like, agony. That would be bleak.’ 

‘Well, that’s good, I suppose,’ Dave says. ‘But what do you do with it? Or do you -’

That prickle of fear creeps back, straight up Klaus’s spine. ‘I’ve hidden it,’ he says, interrupting Dave mid-sentence, bite in his voice. ‘You won’t ever find it.’ 

Dave sits up. ‘Why would I want to find it?’ 

The selkie songs ring in his ears, bitter warnings. ‘To hurt me. Trap me.’

‘I don’t wanna do that, Klaus. Not at all.’

‘Then why were you asking?’ he demands, narrowing his eyes. 

Dave holds his hands up in front of him. ‘I just wanted to know if you had to grow a new one,’ he explains sheepishly. ‘That’s all.’

It’s a thought absurd enough to make him smile, almost. But Klaus is still bristling and he looks down at the tangled sheets, unsure of what to do next. He’s lain himself bare, bones out for the picking. This might be the biggest mistake he’s ever made.

‘Hey,’ Dave says softly. ‘I mean it, okay? I won’t go looking, I swear. And sorry for the rush of questions. Just got a little excited. I won’t ask any more if it makes you uncomfortable.’

He looks back up. ‘You can still ask me things,’ he mumbles. ‘Apart from where… where it is.’

‘Easy.’ Dave smiles, crooked in the corner. ‘I’m sure I can come up with some.’ He glances away and swears, full of legitimate annoyance, noticing for the first time that it’s gotten light outside. ‘I have to go up the hill. I’m sorry. I promise I’m not running out on you because I’m freaking out, though I think it’s safe to say I’m not _not_ freaking out. And I don’t even think it’s fully hit me yet. Or maybe it has?’ He shakes himself. ‘Shit, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be back. Real soon.’ 

‘I’ll come with you,’ Klaus says. He’s a bit worried that Dave is about to head right on down to the nook in the back of the tidal cave where his skin is currently hidden, layered with smooth stones and driftwood. Even with Dave’s recent promise echoing in his memory. Even though there’s no way he knows where it is. 

Dave nods. He looks at Klaus for a long moment, taking him in with new eyes, then gets out of bed and pulls on clothes from his wardrobe. He hands some to Klaus too, who puts them on even though they hang off him. 

They set off into the early morning, up the hill. It’s a short walk. There is dew on the tussock grass and the first rays are gold. Klaus opens his mouth and breathes out a pillar of steam that rises up into the sky before the wind whips it away, and Dave steals thoughtful glances at him while they walk. Klaus steals glances at him too, then the sea. 

The lighthouse is spick and span, not a speck of dust to be seen inside. Dave keeps it immaculate. Still, he cleans the glass some more and Klaus waits patiently, looking out from this towering room. It’s the highest up Klaus has ever been. From there, the whole world unfurls with a glance. The islands nearby are small, but to Klaus’s eyes they are never lonely nor isolated. After all, the ocean stretches between each one, connecting everything, and he knows by heart the texture of the sea floor, the different gullies and ridges, the numerous creatures that lurk and splash and hunt in its depths. If anything, the islands seem emptier for the lack of ocean. They’re dried out and quiet. The water is alive. 

From here, the sea’s surface is steely grey, obscuring anything beneath. He wonders what Dave sees. Does he see only the islands, eyes flicking over the rest as negative space, nothingness? Or does the sea fill up his being as much as it does for Klaus? 

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Dave says, coming to join him at the window. He’s pulled all the other blinds down except for this one, so the room is dim. A square of light pools at their feet. ‘I can never quite believe it. Spend way too much time up here some mornings, lost in looking.’ 

‘It’s home,’ Klaus replies. He can’t separate himself from what he sees. He’s nothing without it. 

‘Of course,’ Dave says. After a moment’s thought, he wraps an arm around Klaus’s middle. ‘I have a question. Do you mind?’ 

‘Ask away.’ That’s a phrase Dave said all day yesterday. Klaus likes the freedom of it. He likes a lot of the things Dave says, stores them up to use himself later. 

‘How long can you stay like this? The moon was full a couple days ago.’ 

He chews on his lip. ‘I don’t really know. I’ve never done this before. But hypothetically, if I can’t get to my pelt I’ll stay like this forever. Until I die.’ 

‘But you know where it is, right? You said you hid it. I’m not asking where, I’m just-’

‘I know what you mean,’ Klaus says. ‘And yes.’ 

‘So what’s keeping you here?’ 

He leans his head against Dave’s, a smile sneaking up on him. ‘Nothing.’ 


	8. The Kindling

They fall into an easy rhythm, the two of them. At least they do once Dave’s mind finally stops whirling.

His lover from the sea. Sometimes that phrase runs around in his head and he feels this rush of _ something, _be it wonder or terror. It’s madness. He hasn’t breathed a word about it to anyone. Not to Hazel, not even to Patch. He has no idea where he’d even start. 

For one, there’s no physical difference to pinpoint. He always wakes before Klaus and in those slow moments before the sun comes up, when all that can be heard is the roar of waves in the distance and the howl of the ceaseless wind, he studies his strange lover, never tiring of it. Human looking face. Human looking body. Perhaps the skin between Klaus’s fingers grows a bit further than Dave’s own, but it’s not enough to call them webbed. He didn’t even notice it until he looked up close. And perhaps his canines are sharper than most, but that’s not unheard of either. Dave remembers when Agnes corrected him on seal biology, wonders whether he just doesn’t know how to look. 

Klaus twitches in his sleep, eyelids darting with the movement of dreams. He says things too, words that Dave can’t understand, can’t pronounce. He always wakes when Dave moves to get up, will mumble a complaint and reach blearily to tug him back into bed. He likes physical contact. Klaus says that’s what it’s like to communicate with his family, all subtle nudges, brash headbutts and the like. When Dave asks if he misses them, Klaus laughs and says, ‘Hardly.’ But Dave thinks that’s a lie, what with the moments where he catches Klaus standing at a windowsill and staring out into the mist-hazed distance, caught in some sort of daze. Sometimes he takes a while to snap out of it, coming around confused and disoriented, before drifting back down to earth, mischievous light returning to his eyes, smile bright and cheeky, all for Dave. 

The endless tide of questions seems to have come to a halt. Or at least slowed. Klaus is an insanely fast learner, and Dave doesn’t know if that’s a selkie thing or if he’s just particularly quick to catch on. Three weeks ago he didn’t know what wool was and now he’s halfway through an extremely knobbly scarf which he likes to keep on him at all times, knitting needles poking out from his pockets like antennae. He’s started listening to the radio too. The signal isn’t the greatest, but Klaus doesn’t care. He likes talkback most of all, insists he’s actually interested in what all these people have to say, that it helps him learn what humans are like despite the fact they’re mostly old fogeys. 

Dave overheard one of the shows and when he realised what they were saying, his stomach dropped. After that, he took it upon himself to sit Klaus down and have a (very messy) chat about social norms and politics and history and ethics. It’s not that Klaus is naive or stupid; he merely has a bit of catching up to do in terms of human society, and Dave doesn’t particularly want these talkshows sending him awry. The result so far is that Klaus continues to listen to the shows but now he passionately argues back like the broadcasters can hear him, pacing barefoot around the living room. He also rants to Dave about the guests who call in. Frequently.

As for learning: rather than mimicking their ideas, he starts to mimick their language. It’s disarming. One day Dave comes inside from digging up potatoes and because his hands are full he can’t grab the door when the wind gusts through the house, slamming it shut. Klaus jumps a foot in the air at the huge bang it makes, hand over his heart, exclaiming, ‘Christ on a _ cracker! _’ Dave’s eyes nearly bug out of his head, and he starts to wonder if he’s witnessing the making of a monster. 

But that’s unfair. Klaus somehow makes it charming. Once he starts to talk more, and less like he’s fallen out of an incomplete eighteenth century dictionary, he never stops chattering. The island comes alive with him there, like nothing Dave’s ever seen. He’s funny too. A goof. Makes Dave laugh until he’s in stitches. The more time Dave spends with him - and it’s been nearly three weeks now - the more certain he is that Klaus is definitely the very same seal that came to the cove. He has the same instinct for trouble. Toes the line between playful fun and being a total nuisance. Dave supposes he’s lucky that Klaus likes him, because he can’t imagine being on the receiving end of his mischief if Klaus really was out to make his life hell. 

Only three weeks and Dave’s already struggling to picture what life here would be like without him. Even when he’s out working up a sweat, doing repairs or digging up the garden on his own, his thoughts are full of Klaus, overflowing with dark hair, light green eyes, all that clumsy elegance, that easy familiarity. It scares him a little. There’s something about the isolation of the island which pressurises everything, the loneliness filled up so fast and so perfectly, and it makes him worry that their sudden intense closeness is only an illusion. 

Klaus simply happens to slot right in, and Dave lets it happen. He lets his guard down. 

~~~

There are moments that stick with him, after. Teaching Klaus how to light a fire once he got over his fear of it. Listening to music together on a sunny afternoon. Dancing on the beach, wind in their hair. Sharing selves. And a cold morning when he should have stayed. 

Klaus sits cross-legged beside Dave as he lights the fire, handing him pieces of kindling before Dave can ask for it. Last night Klaus watched with trepidation; now he’s eager to engage with the task. As the curls of a newspaper catch alight, he laughs in quiet glee. Dave steals a glance; Klaus has flickers of fire reflected in his eyes.

Klaus catches him looking. He doesn’t seem to care, his face alight with wonder. ‘So the more you feed it,’ he says, ‘the bigger it gets?’ 

‘Yeah, essentially.’ Dave leans in, adding another log. ‘Fires can get huge. Destroy houses. Forests. Whole cities, even.’

‘How big can we make this one?’ 

Dave grins, leaning back on his hands, watching Klaus gaze hungrily into the fire. ‘You sound like some kind of pyromaniac.’

‘What’s that?’ 

‘Someone who sets things on fire. Obsessively.’ 

‘Anything?’ 

‘Anything.’

Klaus nods thoughtfully. ‘I think I could be that.’ 

He sounds so sincere that Dave laughs. ‘Please don’t burn my house down.’ 

‘Don’t worry. I probably won’t.’

‘Probably?’ 

‘Would you be scared?’ 

‘Yeah,’ Dave says. ‘Course. I’d have nothing left. I could die.’ 

‘I wouldn’t let _ you _ burn,’ Klaus says, like it’s obvious. ‘It’d just be to see.’

Dave stretches out his leg to poke Klaus with his foot. ‘I can’t quite tell if you’re joking or not.’ 

Klaus swats his foot away, grinning, then shimmies over to Dave. He moves tantalisingly close, face pink from where he’s been sitting too close to the heat. Never breaking their shared gaze, he moves nearer and nearer until his lips are pressing soft to Dave’s, just once, a tease. ‘I’m joking,’ he says, then moves away. 

Dave wants to pull him back, kiss him senseless. ‘I thought so,’ he lies. 

‘You forgot I don’t know how to do the match trick.’ 

‘It’s easy enough,’ Dave tells him, an idiot enabling his own ruin because a pretty boy batted his eyelashes. ‘I’ll show you.’ 

And he does. He teaches Klaus the fast flick of the match, the pressure against the thin spindle of wood, enough to make sure it catches, not so much it snaps. Making sure the flame doesn’t lick its way down the spine to singe thumb and forefinger. He isn’t watchful enough. Klaus gets a burn there - his first - and Dave takes him to the sink, telling him to hold it under the cold tap. Klaus has gone quiet and downcast, fun and games come tumbling down, and it’s only a small burn but the way he cried out when the flame bit his thumb made Dave heavy with guilt. He should know not to play with fire by now. Knows the destruction it can wreak. 

‘What won’t you show me, Dave?’ Klaus says to him when they’re still holding the match together, Dave’s arm wrapped loosely around his back, looping around, arm against arm. He doesn’t answer. Merely moves Klaus’s hand in a mimic of striking.

The needle scratches as Dave puts a record on. He runs his finger along the velvety edge of the case, paper worn white with use, then settles it back in the box. Slowly, the song comes to life. A lulling intro, crackly voice, swelling into full song. He sways to it a moment, then turns around.

Klaus, behind him, is frozen in awe. His eyes are wide, his mouth dropped slightly ajar. He’s totally fixated. 

Dave leans close, snaps his fingers to get his attention. ‘All good there?’ 

Klaus looks over at him dreamily. ‘It’s a song,’ he says. Lit up in wonder. 

‘Do you like it?’ 

‘I didn’t know people sang!’ 

‘Course we do,’ Dave says. ‘This is one of my favourites.’ He turns back to the record player and spins the volume dial up and up. 

Klaus starts spinning on the spot, eyes fluttering shut, lolling his head back and forth with the melody. He’s a bit wonky, and ends up spiralling over to Dave who catches him happily. ‘It sounds like the universe,’ he says, loud over the music, laughing. ‘Like the stars are singing to me. I’ve never heard anything like it before.’ 

Dave remembers what it feels like when Klaus hums or sings to himself, the otherworldly visions he conjures, like magic. He wonders how someone who can create something like that could ever be content with the mundane, let alone amazed. 

But Klaus closes his eyes and sways against Dave. They’re slow dancing, essentially. The smile stays, a sweet secret on Klaus’s lips, and Dave listens to the music as it soars into a crescendo, feels the thrum of the drum beat where it coarses from the speaker, and sees the goosebumps break out on the selkie’s skin. 

Klaus’s obsession with fire grows and grows. To save his house from going up in flames at the hands of this creature of the sea (it’s a handful too much irony for his taste) he decides to give Klaus the bonfire of his dreams, hoping that will quell the thirst. 

He builds it down on a pebbly beach near a cliff for shelter, and brings Klaus down there at dusk, the lighthouse already lit above them. They watch together as the gasoline catches. It smells strong, burns bright, and the pale bonelike driftwood scars black. 

‘It’s huge!’ Klaus crows, throwing his arms up in the air and darting around the fire, flashes of sparks and embers in his wake - light-mementos burnt into Dave’s vision. He circles it three times, seeing it from all angles, watching as it rises and morphs and cracks and spits. ‘You made this? For me?’ 

‘Maybe,’ he says slyly. ‘So what do you think? D’you like it?’ 

‘I love it! It’s so dangerous!’ Klaus casts his gaze over the soaring fire once more. ‘...I really, _ really _ want to touch it.’ 

Dave laughs at him. ‘And get burnt again?’ 

‘I know, I know. It’s just - it’s so cool. There’s so much life in it!’ 

His excitement is extremely sweet, and Dave feels quite proud of his little surprise. Still, he can't help but tease: ‘Life, huh? Can't say that's what first comes to my mind.’ 

‘Oh?’ 

‘Yeah,’ he says, half serious. ‘Makes me think of mortality, usually. What with the burning and destruction and all.’ 

Klaus scoffs. ‘Oh, come on. And you say I'm dramatic. Can't you feel it?’ 

‘Feel what?’

Klaus just shakes his head, a mischievous smile spreading across his face - one that Dave is starting to become very familiar with. ‘Let me show you,’ he says, and then with both hands and surprising strength, he drags Dave into a dance. A bounding, twirling, wild dance. Stones go scattering beneath their feet.

‘Agh, Klaus!’ Dave cries, nearly toppling over. ‘Shit-!’ 

As he hauls Dave back up Klaus starts laughing - the unrestrained sort, childlike in its freeness. It’s infectious. Dave starts laughing too, at his clumsiness, at his shock, at the ridiculous way they’re moving. They’re nearly running, spinning around as they go, fire flickering in and out of sight. It’s utter revelry. Klaus’s hands are firm, pulling him where he needs to go and the longer they dance, if that’s what it can be called, the further Dave falls into the dizzy rhythm of it. He’s never been a dancer, and he doubts that anyone looking at them would praise their moves, too writhing, too fluid, but he can feel that there’s something magic about this. And that’s before Klaus starts singing too. 

When he does - singing being the only word that comes close to it, even though singing is not what it was, not at all - Dave finds himself full of delight unlike anything he’s ever felt before. The closest thing to it is when he was nineteen, high on ecstasy at a festival, grinning out at the world and the world grinning back, everything wonderful. But even that hardly compares. Dave sinks into the sound of Klaus, manic and eerie and vivid, shivers running up and down his arms, his spine, across his ribs, his whole body alive and listening - 

He sees the sun rise in slow motion, rays across the horizon, ember red splitting the black, the blue. Cocooned in its warmth, then the tang of an orange, juice bursting into his mouth with a bite; the midday heat on bare skin and burning, sticky tar from the road underfoot; the char of something seared over an open flame; the flames themselves, licking upwards, bright and merry; the smell of woodsmoke in a valley; tendrils of smoke sprouting from kindling, then a roaring fire, and puffs of smoke out of a chimney; harsh smoke pooling in his lungs, an old habit - 

He shakes it off, that vision, that too-real taste of nicotine, and it’s enough to bring him back to himself for a moment, to notice that the dance has slowed, that he’s out of breath. Klaus is still singing, that keening sound. Dave’s hands remain firm in his. The song carries him back under, mellower, deeper - 

Warming blue-tipped fingers on a winter’s night; the lighthouse lantern aglow, such a gentle light from inside while outside it stretches for miles upon miles; rasp and spark of a lighter; echoes of _ happy birthday dear Da-ave _ as he stands on a chair, leans forth to blow out the spindly candles, wax dripping onto the icing, a cardboard party hat on his head; striking a match just to watch it burn; Klaus in front of the fire, halo of light around him; then watching a house burn on a black and white television screen, headline bold and blaring at the bottom, flames eating up the walls, eating everything, a shadowed figure that he knows is not himself fleeing before it consumes him too; exposed wires, a glint of glass, photography flash, bright as the white heat of the hottest fires and leaving him blind; all of it, all his life come crumbling down…

He cries out, tears his hands away. Falls to his knees on the beach, hands splayed out to stop him falling any further. The visions dissipate as he blinks away tears of fury and frustration. He can’t - he can’t see it happen again - all he’s been doing is pretending it didn’t happen in the first place - 

‘Dave?’ Klaus’s hand rests on his shoulder, tentative. ‘Are you okay?’ 

‘Don’t do that,’ he says, voice harsh. His throat is all thick. ‘Don’t do that again.’ 

Klaus lifts his hand, though Dave can feel it hovering close. ‘Sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.’

Dave’s arms shake where he’s holding himself up, so he settles back on his heels, short of breath, hanging his head. Behind them, the bonfire continues to rage. Below, the ocean rises. 

‘What’s it like?’ Dave asks, sitting on the floor, flipping idly through a book. He hasn’t really been reading it at all. 

Klaus is lying on his back in front of the fireplace. His arms and legs are spread wide; the loose shirt he’s wearing has ridden up slightly - Dave’s clothes are all too big on him. He’s dozing and Dave thinks of the seals at the cove lying on rocks like this, like liquid. He figures if he tried to pick Klaus up, he would melt into his arms, content. He imagines the soft, sleepy noises he’d make. 

‘What’s what like?’ Klaus murmurs, barely stirring. 

‘Being a seal.’

Klaus groans. ‘God, I don’t know. Don’t ask me such a hard question.’

‘You know better than me,’ Dave teases. ‘Come on. Humour me. Which do you prefer being? Human or seal?’ 

Klaus groans again and rolls onto his front, hissing slightly as his bare stomach meets the cold floor. ‘It’s not like that,’ he says, laying his head on his arms, looking at Dave. ‘I’m always me.’ 

‘But there’s gotta be differences.’ 

‘Well, _ yeah. _Course. I’m really bad at swimming like this. But it’s nice having wriggly, gripping hands.’ He waggles his fingers. ‘What’s it like not being able to change? Stuck human all the time?’ 

Dave flounders for an answer. He’s never thought of himself being stuck. ‘I… don’t. I mean, I don’t know…’

‘See,’ Klaus says. ‘Same for me. It’s just how it is - like, I can’t imagine not being able to change. Even if I haven’t for a while, the potential’s always there.’ 

‘But you must feel more seal than human most of the time, right? You said this is the longest you’ve ever stayed human.’ 

Klaus shrugs. ‘I’m no less a seal now.’

Dave struggles to get his head around that concept. He looks at Klaus and he doesn’t see a seal, even if that’s what he’s trying to see.

He changes tack instead. ‘I’ll ask a different question, then. What’s it like living underwater?’ 

Klaus laughs. ‘You really don’t know much about seals, do you? We live on the beaches.’

‘Swimming, then,’ Dave says.

‘Same as when you go swimming.’ 

It is Dave’s turn to groan. ‘You’re _ impossible _,’ he says, picking up a pillow and chucking it over at Klaus, who dodges poorly. ‘Can’t believe this is what I get for answering all of your endless questions so kindly. And thoroughly.’

Klaus laughs again and pulls himself across the floor with his arms, moving towards Dave without getting up. Dave is reminded once again of a seal pulling itself across the beach, ungainly and slow, and he wonders if Klaus is doing it on purpose, or if that’s just how he wants to move. He thinks it’s the former. 

Eventually - and it’s a comically slow crawl, Klaus laughing at himself the whole time, palms slapping against the floorboards - Klaus drapes himself over Dave’s legs, rolling onto his back again, and Dave slips his hand beneath the shirt which has been teasing him all evening.

‘It’s the best thing in the world,’ Klaus says, eyes closed in reminiscence. ‘All of it. Floating up in the shallows where it’s warm. Diving down as fast as possible to the bottom, til I’m scraping along the sand. Chasing fish. Being tossed by waves when it’s choppy. Hiding in crevices to give my brother a fright when he swims along. All the different colours of blue. The weight of the water at the deepest part. The way the sky looks when I come up after my eyes have adjusted to the dark, like it’s brighter than anything else, like it’s bursting through the clouds.’ Klaus shrugs, eyes still closed. ‘Does that get at what you’re asking? It’s my whole world down there. I don’t know how to summarise it for you.’ 

‘That was perfect.’ 

Klaus opens his eyes and smiles at Dave, dreamily. ‘I’d show you if I could. Like you show me everything here. Make us even. I don’t always want to be the one on the back foot.’ 

‘I could get scuba diving equipment.’ 

Klaus snorts. ‘Oh god, no. It’s just not the same.’

‘But it was okay when we swam together before, wasn’t it?’ 

‘You were _ sooo _slow, Dave.’ 

‘Well, so were you, Flippers. Land suits you better when you’ve got legs.’ 

Klaus scoffs in offence, hitting Dave lightly on his chest. 

‘Don’t you like that name?’ Dave teases. ‘How about Blubber? Or Chubs? I called you that for a while.’ 

‘Oh my god. No. You’re not allowed to call me that. Not any of them.’ 

‘Oh? Says who?’ 

‘Says… says the king. The seal king. You wouldn’t know him.’

Dave strokes his hand over Klaus’s stomach, caresses his side. ‘Seal king, sure. I believe you… Chubs.’ 

‘Dave_ , _ no,’ Klaus whines, like he’s in physical pain. ‘You’re so _ mean _.’ 

‘I think it suits you.’

‘You have no taste.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Mhmm.’ He stretches his arms up over his head, arching his back in a catlike stretch. Dave pushes the shirt up further, exploring. Once he’s softened back from his tautness, he looks up at Dave, mischievous, and says, ‘You’re better at the buttons than I am.’ Clearly not that annoyed. 

‘Practice makes perfect,’ Dave replies. ‘Go on. Give it a go. My hands are a bit preoccupied anyway.’ 

Klaus smiles and begins to undo the buttons on his shirt, deftly despite what he said. ‘Why,’ he asks, ‘do you go to all the trouble of making me wear these things, if you prefer to see me out of them?’ 

With the last button, the shirt comes away like a parcel unwrapped, falling either side of Klaus’s chest. Dave’s hand stills in its wandering. ‘There’s lots of reasons.’ 

‘Like?’

‘Being polite. Most people don’t want to see everyone else naked.’

‘You want to see me naked,’ Klaus retorts. 

Dave blushes. ‘Well, that’s different. That’s because I like you.’ 

‘But there’s no one else here to worry about, and you still say I should be dressed. It was one of the first things you said to me, actually.’ 

‘It’s just what we do,’ Dave says, hand stroking Klaus’s cheek now. The way he’s lying at a slight downwards angle makes the hair fall away from his face, all fluffy. ‘Keeps us warm.’ 

‘I’m not cold.’ Klaus sits up, swivels and puts his arms loosely over each of Dave’s shoulders, and the strands of hair float down. He’s been swimming again - it’s slow, less flexible from the salt. The shirt sleeves have slipped down his arms. Dave’s wearing a sweater; Klaus doesn’t even have goosebumps. 

‘No,’ Dave says. ‘You’re not.’ 

‘And you like to undress me.’ 

‘I do.’

Klaus turns slightly, offering out his arm so that Dave can slip the sleeve down past his wrist. Dave does so, slowly, gently, then the other side too, until Klaus is shirtless. He strokes his thumb along the scar over Klaus’s ribs, then up, up to the nape of his neck, fingers in that salty hair. Klaus luxuriates in the attention. 

‘I like being undressed by you,’ Klaus says, eyes closed, faint smile on his lips. ‘I like the way it makes me feel.’ 

‘Oh?’ Dave asks, leaning in to kiss him. 

‘Mm. It makes me feel all vulnerable. But in a good way. A way I’ve never felt before.’ Klaus puts his arms back on Dave’s shoulders, and rises up on his knees, straddling Dave’s lap. ‘It almost makes me wonder how I’d feel if you took my skin. I always thought I’d hate it.’ 

Dave frowns. ‘Your sealskin, you mean?’ 

Klaus nods, seemingly breathless. He doesn’t notice Dave’s sudden discomfort. 

‘I wouldn’t ever take that from you,’ Dave says.

Klaus sinks back down onto his heels, and he traces Dave’s lips with his little finger. ‘That’s what you say now,’ he says. ‘I’m sure that’s what all the sailors in the stories said too.’ 

‘I mean it,’ he insists. 

‘Okay,’ Klaus says in a low, flirty voice, and Dave realises that he still doesn’t believe him. ‘If you say so. For now you’ll just have to settle for stealing my pants.’ He pulls Dave’s hands down to the clasp of his trousers, a sly glint in his eye. ‘Chop chop.’ 

One morning Klaus doesn’t want to get out of bed. It’s near 11 when Dave goes back into the bedroom. Klaus isn’t sleeping. He’s just lying there in the dark. 

Dave sits on the bed next to him. ‘Hey.’

With a sigh, Klaus sits up. His head seems to hang heavy on his shoulders. ‘Hey,’ he says quietly. 

‘You alright?’ 

He shrugs. 

‘I’m gonna go down to the dock now. Hazel’s coming in. Did you want to come and meet him?’ 

Dave expects him to perk up; he’s constantly curious about what other people are like. But if anything he droops. 

‘Not really.’ 

Dave frowns. He touches his lover’s cheek softly. 

‘Will you stay here with me for a bit?’ Klaus asks, leaning into the touch. 

Dave wants to. He wants to wrap him up until whatever sadness this is leaves. Maybe if it had been any other task, a task where he didn’t have to meet someone, he would’ve put it off for a while.

Instead, he says, ‘I wish I could. But I really have to go meet Hazel. He’ll be wondering otherwise.’ He kisses a despondant Klaus on the cheek. ‘I’ll be back soon. Then we can curl up. That sound okay?’ 

He gets the smallest nod from Klaus. He’s staring at the quilt. 

Later, once Dave has left the delivery unpacked on his kitchen floor, he knocks softly on the bedroom door before going in. His eyes take a moment to adjust, but when they do Dave goes cold. The bed is empty, unmade. The curtains are still drawn, leaving the room dark and shadowed with blue, but the window behind them is wide open, pushed as high as it can go, and the curtains are billowing in the breeze. Folded in half on the edge of the bed is Klaus’s favourite dressing gown. It had been hanging over the wardrobe door last night; Dave brushes his hand across the fabric and pictures Klaus picking it up, deliberating, then casting it aside. 

He searches the house. He goes down to the beach, wondering if Klaus has gone for another swim. Dave knows he doesn’t like staying out of the water for too long, understandably. He checks the lighthouse. He calls his name out from the top of the hill, scanning the island for his dark-haired selkie, but there’s no reply. Klaus is nowhere to be seen. 

~~~

A quiet week passes. No seals visit the cove.

On the eve of the full moon Dave dares to serve another plate when he has dinner. He keeps it warm in the oven.

By dawn he’s scraping it out for the chickens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading and for all the sweet comments! they make me so happy my dudes
> 
> Also, a question, which someone might be able to help me with:  
What would an american call a fuse box? I swear I have tried to look this up but I can’t for the life of me figure it out (being a little bit technologically illiterate doesn’t help lmao, i don’t understand the electrical lingo..) By the looks of things it’s more common to use circuit breakers there? But what is the box itself usually called in a domestic setting??Please help!


	9. The Pelt

The selkie hides his skin with his brothers and sisters. When he stands tall on two legs he is hit by a rush of sorrow, and he looks out to the island with the light. It’s shining. Of course it is. He pictures Dave pottering around in his little house, and he’s nearly toppled over with the intensity of his need to be there. 

Changed, he feels like he is  _ Klaus  _ once more. As a seal it’s so easy to leave the messy human matters behind, preoccupy himself with sea foam, play in the spray, sleep in the sun. He’d been quite happy, being back. Content. But now he digs his toes into the sand and remembers the smell of fire smoke and the crunch of a roasted potato. He wishes Dave was on this beach with him, so he could drag him into the dance, so he could love him under the moonlight. 

When he sings with his family it’s a lament. They have kept a close eye on him, determined he shall not disappear for another full moon. He still hasn’t told them where he goes but he thinks they have guessed as much. 

He thought he was coping on the island, that he had somehow managed to conquer his nature and ignore the call home. But when it began in earnest, he learnt that the ache to return to the sea is all-encompassing. It paralysed him in Dave’s room the day he left, when all he could do was mope and scratch at his dry skin. He had not expected such a need to return to Dave either; last time, sure, he was curious to return, wished he hadn’t left as soon. But this feels like he has left a piece of himself on the island. Even though he’s got his skin, he’s not quite whole anymore. 

Right now, as he pretends to enjoy the dance - his siblings pull on his hands and send him questioning glances - he thinks he’d give it all up if only to live contentedly with Dave, to forget that as long as the tides march in and out he will be torn between places. 

There’s no way he can get away tonight. But next moon he’ll go back to the island. Next moon he’ll find a way to stay. He swears it.

~~~

The moon is cleaved into a perfect half, but Dave can’t see it from inside. The curtains are pulled over. He’s absorbed in reading, fiddling absent-mindedly with the corner of his page, his cat curled up and purring on his knee. The obscure book was packed up and sent over specially by Patch at his request, and after a few days of refusing to acknowledge its existence, he’s finally reading it.

It’s only a small section, really, that’s relevant:

_ Selkies are mythological creatures, also known as seal folk. They take on human form by shedding their skins, although they live predominantly as seals. _

_ Stories and folklore often involve people falling in love with selkies. Most commonly these stories depict the human, generally a fisherman, coming across a selkie and hiding their sealskin, forcing them to stay on land. These tales usually end with the selkie or their children discovering it, after which they immediately go back to the sea, abandoning their family without a word, never to return.  _

_ Rarer tales involve selkies who willingly seek out lonely or dissatisfied people such as the wives of absent fishermen. These encounters are typically amorous and, as in the other stories, eventually the selkie returns to the ocean.  _

Dave sets the book down and shuts his eyes. He sees Klaus’s face. Feels the emptiness of the island. Thinks,  _ of course, of fucking course.  _

It’s just his luck. 

~~~

_ Where are you going?  _ asks Big Sister. 

_ Catching fish,  _ he replies, gnashing teeth. 

She noses his flipper.  _ Be fast.  _

He speeds away, aching to stretch. The wait until the moon waxes full is going be tiring. It’s still early yet; it’s his only chance to get away. He couldn’t care less about fishing - there is no room for hunger. He’s fixated on his task, already dreaming about changing: the fluid roll of the shoulders, the satisfying click-click-click of his spine, the body yawning apart, splitting seamlessly. He’ll fold himself out of his sealskin and go up to the house and find Dave, every bit of him hoping that Dave doesn’t chase him back into the water. He’ll surely be mad. The thought of anger marring that kind, perfect face makes him queasy. 

See, he has a plan. It’s a plan that will make everything all better. He hasn’t been able to sleep for the last three nights, lost in lunacy, thinking about how important it is, how much it terrifies him. It’s bad. It’s the worst thing he’s ever considered. But it won’t actually  _ kill  _ him, this plan. He’ll be absolutely fine. He’ll be with Dave. 

Isn’t that what he wants, even as he comes over all headachy, shivering with dread?

He keeps swimming furiously, refusing to keep still. Won’t turn back, can’t turn back, not now. As he tires himself out he remembers the taste of longing, all the sweet memories of the things he misses, and the guilt that wracks him for leaving like he did, barely a trace, barely a warning. 

This has to be enough. He doesn’t know what he’ll do otherwise. 

~~~

Dave is walking back from the lighthouse when he sees a tall, pale figure coming out of the water. He stares at the person, indistinguishable from this distance, then he spots the rising moon - full and round - and the next moment he begins sprinting down to the cove.

He runs right into Klaus when they both come around the bend in the steep path at the same time. 

‘Holy shit,’ Dave says, breathing fast and grabbing a hold of Klaus’s arms so he doesn’t topple over. His skin is cold and wet. ‘You came back.’ 

Klaus’s emotions run clear over his face like springwater. Regret and shame and apology. And lightness in his eyes as he searches Dave’s face, drinking him up. It’s been so long.

In an instant Dave feels the month and a half since they last saw each other narrow down into nothing. Days of telling himself that he was infatuated beyond sense, that he was better on his own, suddenly seem wasted. He pulls Klaus into his arms without hesitation. They’re both shivering and it’s not fully caused by the crisp November air. Klaus lifts his head from where it’s pressed against Dave’s neck and he cups Dave’s face with both hands, kissing him once, twice, then a third time, deeper, longer. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Klaus whispers. His voice is small. He seems in awe of Dave. 

Dave has never been good at holding a grudge. Especially when he knows he has no right to expect Klaus to stay, when he never expected him to come back at all. 

‘Don’t be,’ he says. ‘You went home. How can I judge you for that?’ 

‘I didn’t say goodbye.’ 

‘I know-’ 

‘I didn’t visit at the cove either. And I didn’t come last full moon.’ 

‘I know.’ Dave threads his fingers between Klaus’s. ‘That’s okay.’ 

‘You’re not mad?’ 

Dave shakes his head. ‘I just can’t believe you’re here.’ He raises a hand, traces Klaus’s cheekbone with the backs of his fingers, feather-light. Then, just to be sure, he asks casually, ‘You come to stay again?’

‘If you’ll have me?’ 

‘Of course.’ He smiles, soft. ‘It’s too quiet here otherwise.’ 

Klaus looks at him with sudden intensity. He then scrabbles on the ground for something. Dave can’t quite see what it is in the dusk-light, but the next moment Klaus is pressing it into his hands insistently. 

‘Take it,’ he says, all in a rush. ‘Hide it where I’ll never find it.’ 

Sleek, damp fur pools through his fingers. It’s supple and thin. 

‘What-?’ Dave asks in hollow-ringing shock. 

‘Hide it!’ 

‘What?! No!’ 

‘Do you want me to stay or not?’ Klaus says, his eyes flashing uneasily in the dark. 

‘Shit, Klaus, of course I do, but I can’t… I can’t do that to you. I can’t!’ 

Dave tries to pass it back to him but Klaus forces his hands back. That skinny man has always been stronger than he looks and now more than ever he’s fierce with his determination. They grapple in the dark until the skin slides to the ground.

Klaus lets out a cry of frustration. ‘Why won’t you take it? You’re supposed to take it! You’re human, that’s the whole fucking point of you!’ 

‘Klaus-’

‘Don’t you understand?’ he says, voice breaking. ‘I want to stay, I  _ want  _ to, but I can’t unless this stupid skin is gone! Otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life ripped in two, trying to stop myself from going back home, and then when I do go back I’ll be forever longing to come back to you and I won’t be able until the goddamn moon gets her shit together!’

Dave shakes his head in complete denial. ‘I’m not hiding it. I’m not gonna be your jailer.’

Klaus makes a broken sound. ‘I’m  _ asking  _ you.’

‘You’ll resent me,’ he insists. ‘There’s gotta be another way.’

‘There isn’t.’

‘There has to be.’ 

‘There  _ isn’t!  _ I think I would know if there was.’ The bite in his voice vanishes and he turns away, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists like he’s crying. 

He  _ is _ crying, Dave realises. His heart clenches and despite his mounting frustration, he reaches out. ‘Hey,’ he says, a bit hesitantly. ‘Hey, no… come here.’ 

Klaus lets Dave tuck him into his arms. Buries his face in Dave’s shoulder.

‘Ugh,’ he says after a little while, voice thick and shaky. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused.’

Dave rubs his back, but he doesn’t know what to say. 

‘It’s just… I thought you’d want it.’

‘Klaus -’ 

‘Please,’ he begs, trembling, still hiding his face. ‘Please take it.’ 

It’s a horrible thing to be asked. Dave shakes his head, speechless, thinking of telling Klaus to wait, that they’ll talk about it later once he’s calmed down from whatever frenzy this is, once he’s back in his right mind. He looks over Klaus’s shoulder, barely comprehending what he’s seeing, the creeping shadows and dusk-black water, and tries to think of some sort of solution while Klaus’s words run round and round in his head:  _ there is no other way. _

If he took it, would that make him a monster? Even if he has Klaus’s permission? He feels like a monster just thinking about it. 

How dare Klaus, he thinks suddenly. How dare he ask such a thing. Surely he must realise how awful it is to consider, let alone act upon. 

‘Please,’ Klaus begs again, quieter.

‘Fine,’ Dave snaps. He can’t think what else to do. 

Klaus pulls back, a strange expression on his face. Uncertainty and relief muddled together. ‘What?’ 

‘I’ll take it.’ Then, briskly, ‘Let’s go up to the house. You’re freezing.’ 

Klaus doesn’t say anything to that, his mouth hanging open. Dave leans down and picks up the skin. He feels a strong compulsion to gather it close to his chest, allowing no one the chance to pry it from his grip, but he forces that to the back of his mind and tucks it over one arm, wrapping his other around Klaus. 

They go up to the house. Its windows glow yellow, the warmth and light more inviting than ever. Klaus doesn’t speak; he seems almost shellshocked, a puzzled frown lining his brow, and he isn’t watching where he’s walking either. Dave has to catch him from tripping a few times. When they come blinking into the kitchen, he doesn’t seem to recognise where he is. 

Dave settles him on the couch in the living room, drapes a blanket over his shivering shoulders. As he does so Klaus reaches out, a pale hand stroking the pelt hanging off Dave’s arm - light touches, tender. His eyes are wide. Then his fingers curl into it, gripping tight, and his mouth snaps shut. 

‘Go,’ he says through clenched teeth, pained. ‘Hide it. Now.’ 

‘I’ll be right back,’ Dave tells him. He puts his hand on Klaus’s, gently loosens his fingers. For a moment he doesn’t think Klaus will let go but eventually his knuckles relax, and his hand slips down, cradled in his lap. 

Dave goes down the hallway to his bedroom. The pelt is surprisingly heavy despite its sleekness. It’s hard to imagine it fitting around Klaus, his long legs somehow curling up inside. He supposes it’s meant to be snug. 

As he’s looking at it the greedy compulsion comes back, like a headrush. He holds the pelt to his nose and breathes in deeply, smelling brine and fish and something else too - something darkly animal. Suddenly he realises that it truly is his to hide. Klaus gave it away; it’s in _his_ hands now. He could lift up a loose floorboard and shove it under, then nail the board down, move a heavy piece of furniture on top of it. Send for a box with a lock, seal it inside, throw the key out to sea. He could take a pair of scissors to the fine fur, chop it up so that Klaus could never, ever wear it again, so he’d _have _to stay with Dave, so he’d never leave without saying goodbye again - 

Bile rises in his throat. Dave shakes his head like a dog, ridding himself of the evil thoughts, and does what he decided on the way up to the house, the only thing he could do: he tears the door of the wardrobe open and slings the sealskin over the nearest coat hanger. The metal hook screeches on the rail as he slides it in line with all the other clothes, then he closes the door with a bang. 

Taking a deep breath, he goes back out to the living room. 

Klaus whips around when he enters. There’s fingernail marks in his cheeks where he’s been gripping his face. He looks like a ghoul. ‘You’ve done it?’ he asks hoarsely. 

Dave collapses on the seat next to him, exhausted. His heart is beating erratically, the sickening shakes of adrenaline coursing through him. ‘I put it away.’ 

Klaus nods stiffly, then curls up on himself, drawing his knees inwards. He laughs, a hollow sound. ‘Well. That’s that. I have no clue where it is and I still feel the same. Worse, even.’ He scrunches his eyes closed. ‘But at least I can’t run off now.’ 

Dave watches him for a long while, the two of them sitting in a tense silence. A part of him wants to draw this bit out as long as possible, but then the other part of him - a softer, yet much more powerful part - knows that would be cruel. Especially when his point has already been proven. He’s angry, and the more he thinks about it, the angrier he gets, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see Klaus suffer.

‘I didn’t hide it, Klaus,’ he says.

A beat. He looks up, uncomprehending. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s hanging up in the wardrobe.’

Klaus stares at him wordlessly, then gets up and goes to look for himself, blanket trailing behind him. Dave lets his head fall into his hands and massages his temples. 

When Klaus comes back, he’s wearing his favourite dressing gown. The blanket is scrunched up in his hands, and as he sits back down beside Dave he shakes it out over the two of them, resting his head on Dave’s shoulder. ‘You were telling the truth,’ he says quietly. 

Dave sighs, leaning his head on top of Klaus’s in turn. ‘I meant what I said. I’m not taking it from you.’ 

There’s a long silence. Dave shuts his eyes and focuses on the rhythm of Klaus breathing in and out against him, trying not to think too much about the dark thoughts that invaded his mind just now. It was like for a few moments he lost his own grip on himself. 

Still, he managed to shake it off before doing something he’d regret. There’s that at least. 

Klaus shifts, reaching for Dave’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ he whispers, squeezing it. 

Dave squeezes back, then hooks his other arm around Klaus’s waist and pulls him closer. 

~~~

Klaus doesn’t remember going to bed but it’s where he wakes, alone, a thick quilt pulled up to his chin. He fell asleep on Dave’s shoulder last night, utterly shattered. Despite sleeping so heavily he’s still exhausted, days of restless anxiety catching up on him, and he rubs sleep from his eyes, yawning. 

There’s weak winter sunlight peeking through a crack in the curtains. He can smell coffee drifting down the hall, breathes it in deeply, then smiles as there’s a loud clatter of crockery. Dave. 

He shakes off his tiredness and jumps out of bed, about to dart right out the door. But the wardrobe catches his eye, and so he spares a moment to look inside again: his sealskin is still hanging where it was last night, dull grey-brown and spotted, odd amonst all of Dave’s clothes. He presses a kiss into his fingertips then strokes them against the fur. Soft and safe. 

Speeding out into the kitchen, he bursts right up behind Dave - he’s stirring his drink, teaspoon clinking - and clamps his arms around his waist, hugging him tight. 

Dave wheezes, the air pushed out of him. ‘Oh, hey,’ he says, twisting around to look. 

‘Good morning!’ 

‘Someone’s excited.’

Klaus smiles and cranes over to kiss his cheek. It’s slighty rough; he hasn’t shaved yet. ‘I missed being here, that’s all.’ 

Dave smiles back. ‘Coffee?’ 

‘Please,’ Klaus says, stepping back a bit so Dave can move again. ‘I missed that stuff too! I want to buzz around again like nothing can stop me. God, I’m so  _ tired _ , you wouldn’t believe. It’s my own fault, really - that’s the first time I’ve slept in like, three days.’ Dave places a cup in his hands, and Klaus sips it immediately, burning his tongue. Perfect amount of sweetness, too - Dave remembered. 

‘Makes sense why you were out like a light, then,’ Dave says, blowing on his drink. ‘Was it ‘cause you were…’

‘Trying to convince myself last night was a good idea? Yeah. Started going a bit loopy over it by the end. Guess you have to be a little crazy to try out something like that.’

Dave hums. ‘Suppose so. You feeling better now?’

‘Yeah. It kinda shocked me out of it, you know. Actually giving it over.’ 

‘I could tell.’ 

Klaus sighs. ‘Lucky for me you’re a stubborn bastard, I guess.’ 

Dave sits down at the table, stretching out his long legs beneath. ‘About that.’

‘Oh?’ Klaus sits down too, tangling his legs up with Dave’s. 

‘Last night...’ Dave hesitates. ‘It was a lot.’ There’s something uncertain in his expression, and suddenly it hits Klaus that maybe the relief from last night didn’t stretch as far as he thought, not for everyone. 

‘A lot of what?’ 

‘A lot to deal with. Especially out of the blue. I mean, I haven’t seen you for weeks, and then you appear outta nowhere and ask me  _ that _ , and…’ He rubs at his face, voice going quiet. ‘It’s just - fuck... It doesn’t feel very fair.’ 

Klaus deflates and looks at his cup, pulling his legs back under his own chair. So Dave is mad after all. He feels foolish. 

‘I keep thinking about what you said,’ Dave continues. ‘And I know you were upset and all, but…’ He pauses, and his hand comes to rest gently on Klaus’s, and Klaus finds it within himself to meet his gaze. Despite what he fears, Dave doesn’t look angry. Just sombre. ‘Did you really mean it when you said that I’m supposed to trap you, just because I’m human? Is that really what you think of me?’

Klaus shakes his head wordlessly, feeling very hollow. Now that he looks closer, there are dark shadows beneath Dave’s eyes. Klaus didn’t even consider how he might be feeling - and what kind of repayment is that for all Dave’s kindness? God, what must he  _ think? _ Suddenly the coffee leaves a bad taste in his mouth. 

‘I need you to say it,’ Dave says. ‘Please.’ 

‘Dave, I…’ His throat is tight. ‘No. I don’t think that. Not at all.’

The wariness in Dave’s expression relaxes, slightly. 

‘I was desperate,’ Klaus continues, feeling like he owes him some sort of explanation, no matter how harried. ‘And very much not thinking clearly. I guess I kind of convinced myself that you’d want to take it from me, but that’s only because I’m, well… a  _ supreme _ idiot, and not because of any actual basis in reality. I thought it’d make you happy. I thought it’d make me happy too, and that was quite wrong.’

Dave sighs heavily. ‘But I told you so many times that I would never take it.’ 

‘I know,’ Klaus says. 

‘You never fully believed me, did you?’ 

He scrambles for words and finds nothing. 

‘It’s okay,’ Dave says. ‘I get it. I’ve seen what that poacher did to you. It can’t be easy trusting us.’ 

Klaus frowns. ‘But I  _ do _ trust you! I’ve trusted you for months! I came to you for help when I got shot, didn’t I? That was even before I knew what you were like!’ 

‘It was also a bit life or death.’ 

‘So?’ 

‘So, it was a last resort. Same as last night.’ He shakes his head. ‘You could’ve talked to me, Klaus. We could’ve figured something out between the two of us.’ 

It’s a thought that hasn’t ever really occured to him before. He slumps in his chair, wondering what else he’s overlooked. He thought he knew Dave pretty well, that he managed to glean enough about him in his last stay: he knows the shape of his body and the sound of his laugh, the smell of him, the way his hair curls and catches in the sun, sometimes brown, sometimes light. He knows that he’s kind and patient and strong. But the things going on inside his head? Klaus realises he hardly knows them at all. 

‘You’re right,’ he admits quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’ 

Dave nods, and takes a sip of his drink. He sets the cup back down with a clunk, clasping it with both hands. 

‘Do you want me to leave?’ Klaus asks. 

Dave looks at him for a long time. ‘No,’ he says eventually, shaking his head. ‘You’re welcome here. And your sealskin - you’re welcome to keep it in the wardrobe too. Or hide it. Whatever you want.’ 

‘Oh…’ he says, thinking. ‘I guess I don’t really want to hide it. It’s kind of nice having it hanging up in there.’ 

It’s tiring business, all this worry and sneaking. He still wishes everything could be easy, his own choices taken out of his hands, but he knows now that handing his sealskin over was a mistake. Yet somehow - and mostly because Dave is good to the bone - he’s stumbled across a sweet spot right in the middle. A miraculous chance to keep this part of himself close, somewhere he can keep an eye on it, touch it, air it out, and make sure it’s safe, while also keeping it here in Dave’s house with Dave’s things, no longer this awful hidden secret, no longer something that Klaus cannot share. 

‘Alright,’ Dave says. ‘Great.’ 

Klaus bites his lip. ‘Dave?’ 

‘Yes?’ 

‘I meant it. That I really do trust you, I mean. And... I like you. I never would’ve come here at all if I didn’t think you were at least a little bit okay.’ 

Dave’s mouth twitches. ‘Oh, just okay?’ he complains. ‘Is that how it is?’ 

The relief that rushes through Klaus right then is nearly overwhelming. He tries to bite back his smile, instead rolling his eyes, and kicking out at Dave’s ankle. ‘More than okay, then.’ 

Dave snorts and kicks him back, lightly, and it quickly turns into a playful tussle, both of them trying to gain the upper hand - or, rather, foot - by getting the last kick in. Eventually Dave sandwiches Klaus’s legs between his like a clamp, while holding onto Klaus’s hands above the table to stop him from prying them apart. Klaus lets himself be caught, just happy to see a bit of light back in Dave’s eyes. 

‘I really did miss you, y’know,’ Dave says, as Klaus wriggles. 

‘Oh hush, you sap.’

Dave smiles, crooked. ‘I’m not being sappy. Turns out there’s  _ way  _ less work here with two of us.’ 

‘We both know that’s a complete and utter lie, David,’ Klaus says, twisting his hand around so he can hold Dave’s properly, threading their fingers together. 

‘Is it, now?’

‘Mhmm. You definitely get less done when I’m around. Not to mention how much chaos I cause. I  _ know  _ I’m a nuisance.’ 

‘The biggest,’ Dave agrees, ‘but I wouldn’t change that for the world.’ 

Klaus grins wide like a human. ‘And so the sap reveals himself once again.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all your helpful comments last chapter <3 i hope you enjoyed this one!!


	10. The Tracker

One evening Dave is sitting at the table with his box of treasures from Eudora. He’s absorbed in picking apart a drone, but when he hears Klaus pottering over he looks up eagerly, smiling at the selkie. Klaus will have questions, for sure, and Dave’s oh so ready to rave about the work of art that is the drone’s wiring. 

‘Whatcha doing?’ Klaus asks. He has a knitting needle tucked precariously behind one ear. 

Dave scoots his chair over so Klaus can pull up another close by. ‘Meddling,’ he replies.

‘Ooh!’ Klaus leans in with excitement, investigating the drone, but then frowns up at Dave. ‘Meddling how? What is it?’ 

‘It’s a drone.’ At Klaus’s confused look, he explains further: ‘It’s like a remote control bird. This one’s got a camera on it too, so it records things.’ 

He nods slowly. ‘Huh. Okay. And what have you got here?’ He points at the box. 

Dave pulls it over and sets it in front of him. It’s a lot messier now than it was when Eudora gave it to him, having picked up almost all the spare electrical bits and bobs from around the island. His actual tool kit is a lot more organised; for this one, the mess is part of the fun. He likes having to dig through it to find his next project, like some kind of chaotic, futuristic archeaologist. ‘There’s all sorts in there. Feel free to have a look.’ 

As Klaus haphazardly rummages, Dave removes the drone’s wires with a deft, delicate touch. He’s well in the zone so when Klaus yelps, he jumps, startled, accidentally snapping one wire.

Klaus is clutching a rusting old thing and Dave immediately recognises it as the tracker that had been embedded in Klaus’s side a few months ago. 

‘Ah, shit,’ he says. ‘I forgot I put that in there. Sorry.’ 

‘Why on earth did you keep it?!’ Klaus is holding it like it might bite him, so Dave holds out his hand to take it. 

‘I’d never seen anything like it. Besides, it’s interesting.’

‘Interesting? That thing almost killed me!’ Klaus eyes the sharp barb maliciously. 

‘I didn’t say I liked it. It’s horrible, I know. But as a tracker, if you remove the invasive bits... well, I have to admit it’s a work of art.’ 

Klaus sits up sharply. ‘A  _ what? _ ’ 

‘A work of art.’ He’s a bit embarrassed by Klaus’s intense stare, so he hurries to explain: ‘Look, I’m a bit of a geek about gadgets and all that. I was an electrician. These kinds of things are right up my alley.’

‘No, not that. You said “tracker.”’ 

‘Oh. Yeah.’ He holds it out so it catches the light, rubs his thumb over the red light, long dead. ‘It’s a tracking device. It means -’

‘I get what it means,’ Klaus interrupts. ‘That whole time it was tracking me?’ 

‘I think so, yeah.’

Klaus slumps back down. ‘Shit.’ He’s picked up on Dave’s swearing habits recently. ‘Do you know who did it?’ 

‘No clue. Some poacher, I reckon. Did you ever see them yourself?’ 

He shakes his head. ‘It came from under a boat. We were swimming under it - they were after my whole family. There was one of those trackers for each of us.’ 

‘Jeez. They all got hit too?’

Klaus grimaces. ‘No, just me. I wasn’t fast enough.’

Dave remembers the festering wound like it’s yesterday, a constant reminder in the scar on Klaus’s side. Then a thought strikes him. ‘Do you think whoever it was… Do you think they know what you are?’ 

‘Surely,’ Klaus says, sighing heavily. ‘They came after us. No other seals.  _ Us.  _ Have you ever seen a regular seal with a tracker like that? They just get hunted in the good old normal fashion.’ He removes the knitting needle from his ear and begins tapping it on the table, a nervous beat. ‘Ugh. This isn’t good. Not good at all.’ 

‘They might not know. I mean, I can’t really tell the difference between you and other seals.’ 

Klaus rolls his eyes. ‘You don’t know how to look.’ 

‘True,’ he says, amused by his bluntness. But when Klaus begins to gnaw on his lip anxiously, Dave picks up his smallest screwdriver and starts to pull the tracker apart. 

The clatter of the back coming off gets Klaus’s attention. ‘Wait… what are you doing to it?’ 

‘Getting it down to its bare bones. I’m gonna try and find out all that I can about it. How it works. Its origin, perhaps. It’s weird technology.’

Klaus picks up the loose back, examining it closely. There’s fineprint writing on it. ‘You can tell all that from looking inside?’

‘Yup. Hopefully, if I get my shit together and figure it out, I might be able to plug it into some system of my own and reverse the signal. Maybe. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot.’ 

He sees it in Klaus’s eyes when understanding sets in. Klaus grabs his shoulder, pressing tight in excitement. ‘If you did that, you’d be able to find the hunter!’ 

‘Exactly.’ Dave grins at him. ‘You catch on quick.’ 

The grin he gets back is bright. 

~~~

Klaus knows by now that Dave likes to keep busy: he has all sorts of things to occupy his time. The tracker is his latest project and even by Dave’s standards he’s thrown himself into it head first. He has a notebook where he writes down all the confusing details, draws little diagrams and dots the paper with little squiggles that he calls question marks. 

‘How do you even know how to do all this?’ Klaus asks, one night. He observes more often than not but he still struggles to make sense of the project. 

It’s meticulous work - the device itself is small and ungainly, and currently Dave is using a magnifying glass to peer at the tiny metallic jutting bits which Klaus doesn’t fully understand. His eye goes all big in the glass while the rest of his face stays the same - a bit like a body half underwater, distorted. Klaus grabs the glass himself once Dave’s put it aside, to look through it and make himself look like a clown. 

‘I told you,’ Dave says, lost in concentration. Klaus finds it deeply attractive when he gets like this, the focus radiating from him, those bright blue eyes sharp and determined. His Dave, doing all this to help him. ‘I’m a trained electrician. This stuff is my bread and butter.’ 

‘Electrician?’

‘Lights and wires and shit.’ Without looking up from his work, he points at a few of the power plugs and the lightbulbs - which still never cease to amaze Klaus. 

Klaus nods in understanding. ‘And that’s why you’re looking after the island’s light.’ 

‘One of the reasons, yeah. I’ve got the skills to keep the generator running.’ Dave pauses and looks up, a shadow falling over his expression. ‘I also just needed the job.’ Then he smiles weakly at Klaus, saying, ‘But I won’t go on about that. It’s not very interesting.’ 

However, it’s too late for that: Klaus interest is piqued. After all, everything about Dave fascinates him. ‘Go on,’ he wheedles. ‘Why’d you need it?’ 

Dave shrugs. Klaus can feel his unease. ‘I’d lost my old one, back on the mainland. My old job. I was a proper electrician. Got fired.’ 

‘They burnt you?!’ 

Dave snorts. ‘No. It just means that they told me I couldn’t do the job anymore. There was no burning.’ As soon as he says that he seems to freeze. ‘Well,’ he adds in a dark voice, ‘that’s not entirely true.’ 

‘Oh, come on,’ Klaus groans when he doesn’t immediately continue. ‘Now I’m  _ really _ intrigued.’ When he still doesn’t say anything, Klaus picks up Dave’s hand to play with, running lines over the creases in his palm.

Eventually, he explains. ‘There was a fire at one of my client’s houses. They blamed it on me. It was… a bit of a fucking catastrophe, to be honest.’

‘Oh.’ Klaus frowns. ‘Was it your fault? The fire?’ 

‘Of course not.’ 

‘Did you tell them that?’

‘No point. They knew I didn’t do it.’

‘So why-?’

‘They were trying to prove something. And they did.’

‘What did -’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dave says hurriedly. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ 

‘Okay,’ Klaus says, backing off. He can’t help feeling skittish sometimes. ‘Sorry.’ 

Dave sighs. ‘No, don’t apologise. It’s just me. I really don’t like thinking about it. I don’t usually have to out here, thankfully.’

Klaus remembers the bonfire on the beach: the way Dave reacted to the song, falling to his knees, breathing harsh and fast, shrugging off Klaus’s touch and avoiding his gaze. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong at the time. ‘Are you scared of it?’ he asks. ‘Fire?’ 

‘Nah. Just brings up bad memories, you know.’ Then Dave grins, eyes glinting- and oh, how Klaus loves that crooked smile. ‘Now I mostly worry about you setting the place ablaze.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says innocently. ‘I would  _ never _ .’

Dave laughs, pulling Klaus’s hand to his lips, before turning back to his tinkering. Klaus watches him for a while, committing to memory the precise way he turns the screwdriver in the miniscule cracks of the screws, the way he runs his thumb over the uneven slab of metal and plastic, coloured green and grey, like it’s a living creature that he’s uncovered from its protective shell, some sort of crunchy mollusc. The way all those pieces fit together into the thing that swam through the ocean and buried itself in his flesh doesn’t make any sense to Klaus. Even when Dave tries to explain the logic of it, which he vaguely understands, Klaus still thinks that it’s like magic. So much about the other people seems like magic, far away and close up. It’s hard enough to accept how that little slab can make dead material move (and he’s already seen the proof of that with his own eyes). The idea that it can tell some hunter where he is too… that sends a chill up his spine. It’s proper dark magic.

He imagines those pointy nubs on the circuit board - that is what Dave calls it - sprouting eyes. Big, googly eyes bulging out of his side. He imagines them on crab stalks, waving around in the air. Or shiny black eyes, gathered in clumps of dozens, like spiders gone wrong. The idea of that peeking out of him is so overwhelming that it almost makes him gag, and there’s a phantom twinge in his old wound, so he hurries to check it, to make sure it’s not actually full of greedy eyes looking out. 

But it’s fine. It looks the same as it did last time he checked. He pulls his t-shirt back down, smoothing it out under his palm, unsettled. 

‘Aha,’ Dave murmurs to himself. ‘There we go. Almost a pity to pull her apart - she’s a beautiful piece of work.’ He holds out his arm, inviting Klaus to slide over and sit next to him, which Klaus does. Dave shows him the pieces, pointing out and explaining what all the different parts do. ‘And I’ll connect this bit,’ he says finally, pointing to a knotty part of wiring, ‘to my own system - once I make it - and we’ll see if it works from there.’ He grins, screwing up his nose. ‘Sorry, Patch.’

‘Why are you sorry?’

‘Oh, I’m not really. It’s only because she gave me all that,’ he points to his box of other treasures, ‘under solemn oath that I’d only use it for my own educational purposes. No hacking into real life systems, especially seeing as I’m already basically an arsonist in the eyes of the law. Don’t need anything else on my record, all that jazz.’ He grins wider. ‘Lucky I never cared much for rules.’ 

Klaus almost swoons. ‘Made to be broken, right?’

‘Exactly.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for clarity’s sake and in case it seems contradictory later: Dave wasn’t actually ever properly convicted of arson, nor is it on his official record. He’s just exaggerating a wee bit to impress his cute bf. Emphasis on VERY SMALL exaggeration. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, darlings!! I hope u enjoyed!


	11. The Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back lads, with all the melodrama xx

A pile of letters comes with the delivery one week - more than Dave is used to. There’s the usual couple from Eudora in bright envelopes (one scarlet, one sunshine yellow) her neat handwriting immediately recognisable. There’s also a bundle of plain white ones bound together with string, also from her. His stomach lurches and he sits down at the table heavily. They look official as hell.

He still hasn’t opened them when Klaus comes in, dumping the box he’s carrying onto the bench with a thunk and a huge groan. ‘What did you even order, Dave? Rocks?!’ 

‘Mm,’ Dave replies, not really listening. He fiddles with the string bow, considering tying it into such a tight knot that he’ll never be able to undo it. 

Klaus met Hazel for the first time today. It was a bit awkward, seeing as Hazel had no idea there was someone else living on the island and kept shooting Dave dubious looks, while Klaus - despite bubbling with excitement a few minutes prior - came over all quiet, hiding halfway behind Dave like he feared Hazel grabbing him and running off. When Hazel offered Dave the usual gift of freshly caught fish, though - then Klaus came forward, all curious. His eyes lit up in approval and after that he even got onto the boat, a bit wary and wobbly, with the usual swarm of questions. 

To be honest, Dave is happy with how it went. He was worried Hazel would ask too many questions, but he seemed mostly bemused, reluctant to pry. It was nice to have the help carting the things up the hill too, a task which normally takes up most of the morning. 

Now these letters threaten to spoil everything. He wishes he could burn them to ashes.

‘Yoohoo,’ Klaus says suddenly, clicking his fingers in front of Dave’s face. ‘You in there?’

‘Huh?’ 

‘I asked, what’re those?’ Klaus nods down at the bundle in Dave’s hands. 

‘Oh… Just letters.’ 

‘Must be important.’ 

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Oh, really? Because you’re clutching them like they might blow up in your face any moment now. And you’ve also gone all grey. Like a piece of old salmon.’

He sets them down firmly. ‘I’m fine. They’re fine.’

‘You won’t mind if I open them, then?’ Klaus asks, leaning down, pulling them towards him. ‘I do need more reading practice.’ 

Dave’s stomach lurches again and he snaps his hand down on top, fast as lightning. ‘Wait, Klaus -’ 

‘What?’ he replies innocently, though his hand stills. 

‘I need to read them myself.’

‘They won’t bite,’ he argues. ‘Why not just read them?’

‘I will. Later. On my own.’ 

Klaus considers him for a long moment before letting go of the thin stack. Relieved, Dave gets up from the table, shoving the letters into his back pocket. He puts on a brave face and slings his arm around Klaus’s waist, squeezing him close. ‘Help me unpack?’ 

Klaus nods, and ather than look at the poorly hidden concern in his expression, Dave throws himself into the unpacking like his life depends on it. 

They’re quiet for much of the morning. Dave can feel his eyes on him, watching closely, wondering. 

~~~

Dave is out of sorts. There’s no way to deny it. Klaus tries his best all day to be as good as he can, feeling like he overstepped in the morning with his teasing and wanting to make up for it. 

Thing is, he doesn’t know what to do because Dave won’t tell him what the problem is. It’s something to do with those letters, that much is clear, but Klaus can hardly read at all and even if he could, Dave obviously doesn’t want him to know what they say. 

When Klaus is upset, he sulks. He doesn’t stay mad for long but he’s also not afraid to milk it while it lasts, hissing insults and brooding. He likes people to notice, to try and cheer him up. 

When Dave is upset, he hides it. Klaus sees the wrinkle in his brow when Dave doesn’t know he’s looking, but as soon as he does notice, he shakes it off and smiles. It’s almost painful watching him try to act like nothing’s the matter. Klaus wants to grab him by the arms and shout _ LET IT OUT! _It’s not like he’s going to judge. He just wants Dave properly happy again, full of infectious excitement and that easy sunshine.

Worst of all, he doesn’t know what Dave wants. Whether he’d like it better if Klaus stayed near, or whether he’s secretly wishing him away. Should he touch him even more than usual? Sweet fleeting kisses whenever the whim crosses, little brushes of hands, a touch to the shoulder, reminding him that Klaus is here and he is not alone. Or is that stifling? Should he stay with him, but give him space? Maybe he wants Klaus to go away and actually do something on his own for once, so that Dave has a break - like cooking their dinner (he’s learning, slowly). He could chop some wood. Or feed the animals - he’s good at that, at least. But then Dave might feel like he’s been abandoned, that Klaus doesn’t care a bit. 

He’s going round in circles over it, to say the least. God, humans are exhausting. 

In the end, he ends up doing a bit of everything, which probably has the worst effect of all: utter confusion. Maybe that’s good. Maybe he ends up acting so strange that he takes Dave’s mind off the other thing, whatever it is. 

‘That was fast,’ Dave says, glancing up at him as the garden gate creaks, as Klaus runs back in for the fourth time in half an hour, short of breath and axe in hand. Dave’s eyes widen. ‘Um - are you okay?’ 

‘Course. Fine.’ Klaus settles the axe delicately by the fence. ‘Never mind that. Forgot I was carrying it.’ 

‘Did you get through all the wood already?’ 

Klaus blinks. ‘Ah. No. I just… thought I’d come see how you are. You know. Do you need any help? I can help you. With anything. I’ve got, like, two whole hands.’ 

A little smile tugs at Dave’s lips. ‘Nothing’s come up in the last five minutes, I’m afraid.’ 

‘Oh well. I’ll just have a bit of a breather then, if you don’t mind,‘ Klaus says, crouching beside him where he’s weeding and valiantly joining in. ‘Hills are _ so _ annoying. No hills underwater. Well… I suppose there are some, actually, but you can kind of avoid them if you don’t feel like it. But you know what I really miss? Floating! What’s the point of having air currents if you can’t just float up on the wind? It sucks! I don’t know how you people _ cope- _’ 

He’s startled out of his rant when Dave’s hand rests on his, stopping him from pulling out any more weeds. ‘Those are carrots, love,’ Dave says. ‘You can leave them in.’ 

There is indeed a pile of miniscule gnarled carrots to his left. ‘Ah. Oops.’ He gives Dave his most endearing smile. ‘Don’t suppose you want carrots for dinner? I could cook. What is it you do to them again? Bake?’ 

Dave grins - the proper crooked grin that Klaus loves. ‘It’s okay,’ he says, chuckling. ‘I think I can manage.’ 

Klaus pokes him in the ribs. ‘Rude.’

‘Just averting disaster,’ Dave says, poking him back. ‘You’re sweet to offer, though.’ He looks at Klaus intensely then, and his eyes go soft and warm. So very blue, like the sea on a bright day. ‘Sweet for all of this,’ he adds. ‘I won’t say I entirely understand your strategy, but I do appreciate it.’ 

‘Well, you’re welcome.’ Then, quieter: ‘Sorry if I’m making a mess of it - cheering you up. I don’t really know what I’m doing.’ 

‘You don’t have to do anything. Just be your own wonderful self, like you’re already doing - albeit a little more erratic than usual.’ Dave stands up and stretches, joints clicking. He pulls Klaus up too, then wraps him in a huge bear hug, lifting him momentarily up into the air. Once he’s settled him back on solid ground, Dave grips Klaus’s shoulders and looks at him determinedly. ‘I like it when you’re around. The island’s already lonesome enough, so you don’t have to keep running back and forth. If I want to be on my own, I’ll tell you.’ 

‘Okay,’ he nods. ‘Duly noted. Shouldn’t be _ too _ much of a drag.’ He kisses Dave’s cheek, liking the roughness. 

‘Yeah, yeah, very funny,’ Dave grumbles happily, leaning into him. 

~~~

The floorboards in the lighthouse are pale, sanded smooth. The lantern itself casts a gentle light inside - not much, but enough to read by. 

Dave sits with his back against the wall and slowly, carefully pulls on the ends of the string bow. It comes undone easily. 

A loose piece of paper flutters out. He picks it up with trembling fingers. 

_ Dave, _

_ Here’s what I’ve got so far. There’s not much, and what I have found is pretty sketchy, lots of signs of tampering. Basically, it’s not enough. _

_ Boss has told me to move along to another case. _

_ I’m sorry. _

He reads it a couple of times over, then sets it to the side. Nausea rises up in his throat but he tries to push past it, taking a deep breath, and he thinks of Eudora - her bravery, her determination. He thinks of Klaus and all the silly, wonderful things he did today, all to cheer him up even after he refused to explain why he’s hurtling in such a spin. He knows that no matter what he reads, he’s not as alone in the world as he was a few scarce months ago. 

Fear is a funny thing. One day he’ll tell Klaus. He will. Even though the prospect terrifies him. Even though he talked once before only to pay for it for the rest of his life. But Klaus deserves to know, if only so that he understands why Dave _ can’t _ talk about it any more. 

The hairs stand up on his arms. He ignores the chill, grits his teeth and tears the first envelope open. 

~~~

Klaus doesn’t know when or if Dave read the letters. He doesn’t say, and Klaus doesn’t ask. The strange mood he’s in lasts a while longer, like his spirit has been dampened. Klaus tries to act like normal, and soon enough there’s barely a trace of Dave’s restless worry. Klaus is content with that. 

He’s content with a lot these days. There’s a real sense of normalcy that has emerged between the two of them, forming a world that is entirely theirs. It’s comprised of little things. Quiet moments, familiar habits. He feels like he’s truly coming to know Dave. To understand him as a person, even if he has his secrets. Klaus doesn’t begrudge him that. 

He knows Dave through the way he sets a sunny yellow mug of coffee by Klaus’s plate at breakfast on a grey, miserable morning, the gentle tap of the crockery on the table, his freed hand moving up to Klaus’s shoulder and lingering for a moment, almost absently, like he doesn’t quite realise he’s doing it. Knows him through the way he settles down in his own chair, already taking a sip of his own drink before he’s even fully sat down. Tasks melting into one another, always ahead, always eager. 

Klaus knows what things are now through his patient teaching - what they’re called, what they do. Where they go in the numerous drawers and cupboards. He knows Dave when he comes in from setting the light for the night, when Klaus kisses him and tastes the sea spray on his lips. Their world together is coming into focus. Sunrise upon sunrise they wake to watch the light arrive, and they watch the days pass in gusts, always different: flocks of gulls screeching as they fly in to roost at midday, heralding a storm; sea whispering or roaring; sunsets burning the sky; speckles of rain settling on their clothes, the wool fuzz gathering little droplets before it sinks in and dampens their skin.

There’s the day when a mouse scurries out of the kitchen, chased by the ginger cat, and Klaus follows with interest while Dave calls out from the other room, begging to know if it’s gone or not, and when Klaus goes in Dave is standing on a chair as though the mouse is going to climb up his leg or gnaw on his toe. Klaus teases him about it for the rest of the evening because _ it’s just a mouse, Dave! Did you see how tiny it was? And how big you are? What do you think it’s gonna do to you? They’re sweet! _But he’s earned the right to tease, since earlier he took the broom in his hands and closed off the other doors in the house, keeping vigilant watch until it was gone for good and Dave could finally breathe again. 

And then there’s the day when Dave shouts from atop the hill, calling him up, and when he’s there Dave points down at the water. 

‘Look!’ he says, loud in his excitement, pointing out at the sea. ‘Orcas! I’ve never seen them here before.’ He grins. ‘I suppose they’re old hat to you, chubs.’ 

When Klaus sees the two tall, black fins slicing through the water he blanches, automatically stepping back a pace or two, like he’s in some sort of danger. It’s a natural reflex. He hates the sight of that tall fin, those killer white patches amongst the shiny black. 

Dave turns. ‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘They’re not my favourite,’ he manages, mostly trying to fight the impulse to run back to the house and hide in bed, blankets over his head. 

Dave frowns at him, then looks back out at the orcas. ‘Ah,’ he says. He comes over to Klaus and stands in front of him, blocking the sea and the predators from sight. ‘Shit. Guess I’m the idiot of the day. I’m sorry.’ 

Klaus waves a hand, trying to brush away any worrying. ‘You couldn’t have known.’ 

‘I mean, I _ could’ve _,’ he insists. ‘I think they’re cool, but I definitely wouldn’t want to swim with the bastards.’ 

He’s shaky, the rush of adrenaline compelling him to flee, or fight, or something in between, but there’s a warmth too, a glow of safety, because Dave is right there - the best defence against the many things in the world that want to hunt him and eat him up. 

There’s the comfort of knowing his sealskin is hanging safe in the wardrobe. He checks it most days. Sometimes Dave touches it - Klaus can usually see from where he’s lounging in bed, watching Dave get dressed - and he’s always gentle, brushing his hand up against it like it’s any other item of clothing, like he’s merely reminding himself of the texture, of the weight. It sends a strange thrill through his body to watch such a thing. He feels that he is witnessing something obscene - or sacred. The line between the two seems slight. 

Perhaps that is how Dave is coming to know him. One way of many. 

But despite all the ways they know each other now, there are still things they do not talk about. Dave’s secret. Klaus’s other home, and the day he’ll go back. 

Dave is in the lighthouse, turning off the light for the day ahead, and Klaus faces into the wind, gusts strong enough to prop him up even when he leans forward into thin air, whipping the hair off his forehead. He clamps his arms tight around the dressing gown he’s wearing in a failure of an attempt to keep it from flying open. He is barefoot. Dave looked at him like he was crazy when they left the house, still dark, into the morning chill. 

The man himself comes out of the lighthouse in the lopsided pom-pom hat Klaus made for him, and a scarf, and his cosiest fisherman’s sweater. When Dave looks like that Klaus has to fight the urge to wrap him up and cling to him and kiss his cheeks - it’s a dangerous game to play, because if he does hug Dave when he is so warm and cosy, then Klaus knows he’ll never let go. It’s something about the layers. The rough wool scratching at his cheek. 

‘You’re going blue,’ Dave says, coming up next to him. He squints into the icy, salty breeze. His nose is pink, as are his cheeks. And Klaus fights it, he fights it determinedly for about four whole seconds, before he caves and leans over to kiss his strong, pretty human. 

Dave laughs against his mouth, happy and surprised, like he always seems to be. He’s never questioned any of Klaus’s affection, not from their first night together when Dave welcomed him so willingly, without words, without hesitation. He clearly wants it, wants Klaus, but there’s always that undercurrent of surprise. Dave doesn’t expect it, Klaus realises, even when it’s actually happening. It’s like he’s never sure how long the kiss is going to last. Like he’s waiting for a wave to come crashing down atop his head. 

So Klaus kisses him harder, causing Dave to stumble back slightly, and he thinks that even though it doesn’t make up for the threat of his disappearance that looms over them, it’s the best he can offer. And he thinks that he and his kind must be cursed to be so drawn to these strange, wonderful people; to be able to love them so quickly and deeply in ways he’s never imagined possible; to leech off their loneliness and isolation, carving out a place for themselves in a life that would never normally have room for him; to forever be torn in two after that cataclysmic moment of transformation. 

When did playing on a forbidden beach with a human - a little bit of mischief, a taboo thrill - turn into this?

He never meant to become so ensnared. And yet he knows more clearly than anything else in the world that he will never give it up. Not for anything. As long as Dave is somewhere that Klaus can find him, no matter how many times he’s vanished, he’ll keep going back. 

Their kiss slows, then stops, and Dave cups his cheek. He looks into Klaus’s eyes, immediately finding the torment Klaus doesn’t speak of aloud. It’s too much. Klaus can’t keep up his half of the gaze, so he looks outwards: the sky is hazy pink where the sun is rising, the islands black shadows jutting out of the depths. Down below he can see the outcrop which hides a cave that can only be reached by swimming past perilously sharp rocks, the cave which used to hide his pelt. The water tosses and spits white froth up into the air, too wild - calling to him. He wants the taste of salt, of fresh-bitten fish. The cold. The dark. The freedom, the roll and the dive and the leaping heart as he goes faster and faster into the depths.

He’s brought out of his silent spiral by Dave ramming the pom-pom beanie onto his head. 

‘You were shivering, so don’t pretend you don’t need it,’ Dave says when he sees Klaus’s mouth drop open in protest. 

‘I _ don’t _need it,’ Klaus argues.

‘Do so.’ 

‘Do not.’ 

‘Do so. Want the scarf too?’ Dave twirls the end of it in Klaus’s face. 

‘No,’ he pouts. ‘I made the hat for _ you, _ Mr. Perpetually Cold.’ 

Dave laughs, dropping the scarf and slinging an arm around Klaus’s shoulder. Like that, the two of them walk back to the house. ‘I’m not giving it to you forever, don’t worry. I like it way too much for that. My very own special gift from my very own strange sea creature.’

‘Sea creature you’re very quickly turning soft. I’m going to end up actually needing to wear all this stuff against the cold if you keep insisting I wear it all the time.’ 

‘What’s so wrong with that?’ Dave says slyly. ‘You look real cute in it.’ 

‘Flatterer.’ 

‘Doesn’t count if it’s the truth.’

‘Well, it’s meant to be on _ you _ , so that _ you _can look cute in it. You’re depriving me of my own view.’ 

Dave pulls him closer, looking at him fondly. ‘You’ll just have to make me more, then. Won’t be hard. At the rate you’re going you’ll have the whole house knitted up before winter’s even halfway through. Like an enormous tea-cosy or some shit.’ 

‘I have to use my hands for something while I’ve still got them,’ Klaus says - thoughtlessly.

Dave’s arm around his shoulder goes stiff. ‘True.’

‘Hey, no, wait,’ he says, a rush of guilt. His tongue feels fat in his mouth. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ 

Dave is silent, staring at the ground like he doesn’t have the dips and curves of this path already memorised. Klaus wishes he could take the words back. They were just teasing. Just teasing each other, and he’s gone and brought up the only thing they refuse to discuss. Right after Dave caught him in a sea-drunk trance too.

‘Dave..?’ 

‘Just forget it. I’m overreacting.’ 

‘I didn’t mean it,’ Klaus repeats. 

‘I know. It’s fine.’ 

‘But it’s _ not _, I can tell-’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dave interrupts. ‘You’re gonna go anyway at some point.’ 

They reach the front door. Dave pulls it open, taking his arm off Klaus as he does so - it’s turned awkward and heavy by this point, but Klaus still misses it immediately - and bustles inside. Dave immediately crosses the kitchen and ducks down the hallway, vanishing into the bathroom. Klaus follows on quiet feet. Hears the rush of the shower as water starts to flow. He tries the door - it’s locked. 

It’s the first time he’s ever felt like an intruder in Dave’s home. His eyes dart around the hallway - everything seems elongated and dark - and things jump out at him that he’s never really noticed before. The way the rug beneath his feet has loose threads on its edge, some of which have snagged in the gaps between the floorboards. An indent in the door, which he runs his thumb over idly. The picture hanging on the wall, strung from a bare nail. He’s never looked at it before, not properly. It’s a photograph of Dave and his friend, the woman called Eudora, taken when they were younger. Dave’s hair is all grown out and a little bit shaggy, and he’s grinning bright as ever. Eudora’s leaning her head on his shoulder. There’s other people in the background, some kind of gathering. Other friends, perhaps. 

Klaus suddenly feels very transient. Replaceable. He tears himself away and retreats to the kitchen. There’s nothing to do there either. 

He’s cold, he realises. He goes into the other room and kneels on the hearth, beginning to build a fire. 

~~~

Dave stands under the stream of water and tries not to think, but he can’t help it. Every day that passes he gets more and more used to Klaus being here, to the point where he’s quietly dreading the day he inevitably vanishes, and refusing to admit to himself that he’s dreading it. But he can’t ignore it any longer. 

Last time it happened, he was moody and lonely. This time, who knows? He might simply fall apart. The idea of being plunged back into isolation is horrifying, after all. Sleeping without a lithe body wrapped around him, no one to talk with over meals, no one to run around the island with, no one to remind him of what’s good in the world…

_ While I’ve still got them. _

Dave tips his head back, lets the water batter his eyelids. He knows logically that he overreacted, especially considering Klaus immediately tried to take back his slip of the tongue. And yet here he is - storming off, locking the goddamn door like a goddamn teenager, showering moodily and stewing in his thoughts. A part of him is looking on and cringing like all hell. The rest is still caught up in the whirlwind. 

It’s only that Klaus said it so easily, like he had more plans to leave than plans to stay. And of course Dave can’t blame him for that - he _ doesn’t _ blame him, not at all - but he’s not blind: he saw him come over all distant up on the hill, a fierce hunger awash over his face, staring out at the sea. Last time he looked like that, all otherly - he left. Although he’s stayed for much, much longer this time, Dave knows all it takes is the flick of a switch and Klaus will be off without a kiss goodbye. Not even a whisper. 

He scrubs at his eyes, at his cheeks, then turns the shower off. 

The towel is rough against his skin. Perhaps he dries himself too harshly. He doesn’t know what to do with what he’s feeling towards Klaus. It’s too much all at once. Not to mention he’s been in a bad mood for over a week now, since the post, since it was confirmed that any chance of a case has fallen through. It’s ridiculous that it’s upset him so much. He thought he’d made his peace with the pointlessness of it long ago, but he must’ve been holding onto a sliver of hope all the same. 

He opens a window like that’ll clear his head. A crisp breeze pours in, cutting through the steam. Leaning on the sill, he watches the golden-brown tussock grass that covers the hill outside batter back and forth. Clouds scurry across the sky. 

He’s been hiding in this wonderful haven for too long, a world for him and Klaus alone, reality inexistant. Now that bubble has burst. Everything is crashing down, all at once. He can almost hear Eudora ripping into him over it, all singsong told-you-so: _ that’s what happens when you don’t deal with your bullshit, dingus. It just gets worse. _

Thing is, the only thing that has stopped him from spiralling entirely over the whole mess from back home is Klaus. So can he really blame himself for panicking at the thought that he might lose him? Maybe he’s only just starting to realise it, but he _ needs _him. 

And oh boy, if that isn’t unhealthy. He’s too greedy. It’s a bit rich of him too, wanting so much from Klaus yet still not trusting him with these secrets, even after he offered his soul up to Dave. The truth is he’s cowardly - has silenced himself, like he swore he never would. 

Dave turns back into the room, away from the chill air. Steam has condensed on the mirror. He wipes it clear with the back of his hand, and looks at the stranger in it, wondering what he really deserves.

~~~

Dave joins him on the rug in front of the fire. Klaus spares him a glance before turning away: his hair is wet and unusually messy, his eyes red.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dave says. ‘You didn’t deserve that.’ 

Klaus licks his lips nervously. He’s not annoyed at Dave, doesn’t expect an apology; he mostly feels unsettled. This is new ground they’re walking, all this uncertainty. 

‘But you were right,’ he says. ‘I might… you know-’ 

‘Go back?’

He nods. 

‘I know,’ Dave says, sighing. ‘I’ve known that all this time. Can’t pretend it’s news.’ He takes a deep breath and tugs his hand through his hair, hiding most of his face from Klaus. ‘I won’t stop you, if you ever want to. The sea’s your home.’ 

‘But what about you?’ 

Dave moves his hand away. His smile is thin. The small gap between them seems suddenly as wide as a canyon. It won’t do. Klaus makes a little motion with his head, beckoning Dave closer, and although for a moment he worries that Dave won’t move, he ends up shuffling over. They end up in a sort of shared embrace, each wrapping comforting arms around the other, heads resting together. 

It’s easier to talk without looking into someone’s face, Klaus has learnt. But they don’t talk for a while - they just hold each other. Quiet is good too. The fire crackles. Klaus looks out the window at the pale grey sky, one hand stroking the wool of Dave’s sweater, the other gently twining in his hair. 

‘I read a book about selkies,’ Dave says eventually. ‘When you left the last time.’ 

Klaus frowns. ‘I didn’t know there were books about us.’ 

‘Neither. They were all myths, of course, but there was one that was pretty familiar. To us, I mean. What with me being lonely and all, and you coming ashore on purpose. Anyway, I thought that story might finish differently to the others, but...’ He pauses, clearing his throat. ‘They all leave, whether they came here by choice or not. Leave for good.’ 

‘We have stories too,’ Klaus says hurriedly. ‘They don’t always leave in ours.’ 

‘Why not?’

Klaus grimaces. ‘Well… They’re stuck, I suppose. And then they die.’ He’s not making a good case of it, and Dave makes an unhappy sound that stabs right at Klaus’s heart. ‘But that’s not what’s happening here! I’m not stuck - and last I checked I’m not dead.’

‘Touch wood,’ Dave murmurs, gently patting Klaus on the head. Then he sighs. ‘You’re not… you’re not miserable here, are you?’

‘No! Definitely not!’ 

‘Because you can leave?’ 

He untangles himself and cups Dave’s face, making him look him in the eyes. ‘Because I want to be here, you idiot.’ 

‘Really?’

‘_ Yes. _Was that not already obvious?’ 

Dave makes that unhappy noise again, shrugging. ‘I dunno. I guess so. Sorry. I’m just… in a weird mood.’ 

‘I don’t mind,’ Klaus says gently. 

Now that they’re facing each other again, Klaus can see the way his lower lip trembles, the clench of his jaw as he tries to hold back the raw emotion battling to the surface. His eyes are overbright, and he leans into Klaus’s hand like he wants to hide there. ‘Sorry,’ he says again, voice tight, then cracking. ‘It’s been… ugh. It’s been a really rough week. Fuck.’ 

‘Oh, Dave -’ 

Dave’s face screws up, and Klaus can tell that he’s trying so hard not to cry - and he doesn’t know why, only knows that sometimes it’s the only thing that can be done, that it’s the only way to set something loose inside and let it go on its way - so he wraps Dave up as tight as he can. Remembering what Dave called him once earlier this week, and the warmth in that word, he says, ‘Just cry, love. It’s okay.’ 

He’s always copying Dave. All manner of things to learn that way, all sorts of things to share. 

Dave crumples into him and lets go, and Klaus murmurs, ‘I’ve got you, it’s okay,’ again and again, holding him close. 

He calms after a while. Klaus rubs soothing circles on his back. 

‘I don’t think I’m gonna do any more work today,’ Dave says, stuffily. ‘Day off.’ 

‘Sounds like a plan to me.’ 

Klaus ends up shoving the couch over so it sits in the warmest spot right in front of the fire - it makes a dreadful scraping sound as it goes - and he pulls Dave up onto it with a heave. He’s come over a bit shy and embarrassed, so Klaus cups his face again, kissing him all over as many times as it takes to make him laugh. 

‘Now - stay there, kay? I’m gonna get you everything you need. Like coffee. Do you want some coffee?’ 

‘You remember how to make it?’ 

‘Uh... yup. Course.’ 

Klaus brings him a full mug, sloshing as he walks, as well as a blanket and other bits of pieces that caught his eye as he darted around the house: he’s pushing Dave’s box of treasures along the floor with his toe, has the book that had been propped open on the bedside table tucked under one arm, as well as the box of fancy chocolates that Dave’s always saving for a special occasion (the same box which Klaus raids every now and again, because - _ do you have any idea how many years I’ve wasted not knowing something like this exists?! How much I could have eaten by now?!) _

By the time he finally settles down with his own cup of coffee, Dave’s drunk half of his. Klaus takes his first sip and gags at the grittiness, spitting it out. 

‘Ugh! What did I _ do? _’ 

Dave’s curled up under the blanket, the cat on his lap. He watches Klaus, looking oh-so- amused. And soft, and cosy, and happier. ‘Stirred the grounds straight into the cup, by the looks of it.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s not too bad if you let it settle.’ 

~~~

They both knew it was coming, really. 

It’s only a few days later when Dave catches Klaus standing down at the shore, staring wistfully at the water. His heart turns to lead, yet somehow he manages to take heavy steps down the steep, pebbly path to the beach. 

‘You want to go back,’ he says once he is near enough. Klaus can’t have heard his noisy approach, deep in some sort of trance with the rolling waves; he startles, looking guilty, and Dave realises then and there that he hates that expression on him. Or rather, he hates that he’s somehow put Klaus in a position where he feels guilty for his own nature. He wishes more than anything that it didn’t have to be this way. 

Klaus hesitates. The waves crash and crash again. ‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘But you still want to.’

‘It’s not about what I want.’ 

That makes Dave flinch. He remembers Klaus beseeching him at dusk, sleek pelt slipping between fingers, begging for Dave to take the choice from his hands. ‘Klaus - I told you -’ 

‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ he interrupts. He hunches over himself, like he’s trying to hold separate pieces of himself together, like making himself small will mean the world won’t take notice of him any more. ‘The damned sea won’t get out of my head. It’s always there, calling to me. Always. I don’t think it’ll ever stop.’

Dave’s throat feels thick. ‘Maybe it’s not something you can fight.’ He doesn’t know how he does it - even though he’s said it before, it gets harder every time - but he says, ‘You know I won’t stop you.’ 

Klaus shrinks smaller, closes his eyes. ‘But I _ want _ to stay. I want to be with you, here. On land.’ 

‘You want to be there too. You’re hurting. I can see it, plain as day.’ 

Klaus says nothing to that. The wind blows the hair off his forehead, the light catches in pensive green eyes. His mouth is a line of worry, and when he starts to chew on his lip, Dave holds out his hand. Klaus barely looks before taking it, and Dave yanks him closer, right into his arms. 

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of having Klaus in his arms, spindly limbs, bony elbows and all. The only way he can feasibly say goodbye to Klaus, watch him walk into the water and swim away, form melding into form, is if he has some sort of promise that one day these arms of his will be full again with the person who fits there best. 

‘You’ll come back,’ Dave says. It’s not a question. There’s no room for the uncertainty he’s feeling to be voiced. 

‘It’s the full moon in three days,’ Klaus says, and it’s just as much not an answer. 

Despite that, Dave nods shakily. ‘Good. Because you must know that I love - love having you here.’ 

He feels the huff of Klaus’s laugh against him. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he whispers. ‘Love you too, Dave.’ 

It’s another thing they’re both coming to know. Just like Dave knows he’ll wait at the beach in the moments before the moon begins to wane in three days, and Klaus knows that he plans on reuniting with his family, dancing with them on some distant beach, and then swimming back before it’s too late to change. 

Klaus goes back up to the house without another word. 

Dave doesn’t remember sitting down, but there he is, scattering stones so he can dig his fingers into the black sand beneath. It gets under his fingernails. He scrubs his palms with it. His hands become claws as though his world is tilting and he has no other way to hold on. 

Klaus comes back down from the house. He has undressed, replaced his clothes with that damn dressing gown, and he crouches by Dave, a light hand on his shoulder. 

‘I’ll see you soon,’ he says. There’s a different look about him. Something electric. Fuzzed at the edges, yet sharper than ever. Maybe it’s just the haze Dave’s fallen into. 

He can’t find his voice to reply, so he nods. Klaus hesitates, nods too, and everything feels stiflingly formal. Then he unties the robe, dropping it, and goes gracelessly to the water, sealskin draped over one arm. Waist-deep, he pulls the pelt over his shoulders, then over his head like he’s wearing a hood. For a moment, he looks back. There’s a parting smile just for Dave, before he turns, dives. When he resurfaces he’s a seal once again, and Dave’s caught - caught somewhere between wonder and devastation, breath stolen by the impossibility of it, the proof of it, and stolen by the finality, by the way the waves crest over that shiny grey body until he’s gone, and Dave can’t even see a shadow of movement beneath the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed!!
> 
> on a somewhat unrelated note and with a drastic change of tone, the other day i was telling my bf about my umbrella academy interest (obsession..) and that i think robert sheehan is a funky lil dude. and he was like 'oh yeah, that guy- i met him once. i've had a vendetta against the man ever since. if I ever meet him again I'll deck him on sight.' 
> 
> so i'm still processing that.
> 
> Until next time, bon appetit, etcetera xx


	12. The Vote

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for violence

The selkie’s return to his family is as tricky as he expects. 

_ We thought you were dead, _his sharp-toothed brother says. He’s mad. The selkie can see the hardness in his eyes. 

_ We thought the hunter got you too, _adds shy sister. 

He came across the two of them in the water. They’re close to shore but haven’t swum in yet. For now they swim circles around him, buffetting him in admonishment. He thinks they’re being a bit too rough, to be honest, but then he doesn’t know if he’s just gone soft. Gone human. They’d always communicated in such ways before - he’d been fluent. And although he swims just as well as he did before, he feels like he’s playing catch up with them. 

_ He didn’t, _the selkie says. 

His brother swims beside him, side by side. Too close. _ Where did you go, then? _

The selkie tries to shake him off, but he’s unsuccessful. _ None of your business. I can look after myself. _

His sister has been hanging back, letting the two of them wrangle out their argument themselves. But now she darts forward, nudging them both. _ Tell him, _ she says. _ He should know. _

The selkie stills. _ Tell me what? _

His sharp-toothed brother slows too. He doesn’t answer. 

_ Tell me! What happened?! _

_ The hunter, _ his sister tells him. _ He came back. _

The wound in his side twinges. 

_ Littlest brother, _ she says. _ And quietest brother. _

_ Shot? _His flipper twitches towards his scar. 

_ No, _ his brother says. _ Gone. _

The moon rises. They shed their skins, but they do not dance. 

‘He took them both,’ Luther says, exasperated. ‘Both, gone - probably dead! And you were off gallivanting with humans!’ 

‘You don’t know that,’ Klaus retorts. 

Luther scowls at him. ‘Do you deny it?’ 

Klaus crosses his arms, petulant. ‘It was only _ one _ human.’

‘Knew it,’ Diego says. 

‘What does it even matter to you?’ 

‘It matters a whole lot, I think.’ 

‘Somehow the hunter knew where to find us again,’ Allison says, ‘after you spent days upon days with a human...’

‘Are you accusing me?’ He’s deadly quiet. The thought that his siblings could feasibly see him betraying them, risking their lives, spilling their secrets - it shakes him to his core. He knows he never would. _ Never. _He has that faith in them too. Took it for granted that this trust went both ways. 

‘We don’t think you did anything,’ Vanya says hastily. 

‘The human, though,’ Diego says in a low voice. ‘He would.’ 

‘He would never,’ Klaus says. He burns with a sudden rage. He’s too caught up in his defensiveness to remember that his siblings don’t know Dave like he does, haven’t been privy to the weeks upon weeks of growing trust. Even so, distrust of Dave is distrust of him. They must know he would never divulge their secrets to anyone who wanted to hunt and trap and wreak misery. 

‘He’s a human -’ Luther says, like he’s explaining to a child. 

‘He’s not like the rest. He’s the one who healed me, when I was attacked -’ 

‘We can’t take any chances, Klaus,’ Allison says firmly. ‘One kind act doesn’t undo their natural cruelty.’

‘If he’s so bad, how am I here now, hm?’ He holds his arms out. ‘Why didn’t he trap me, hide my pelt?’ 

Diego rolls his eyes. ‘Clearly _ someone _ finally remembered how to hide their skin properly.’ 

‘Nope! He knew where it was! It was in his house - I showed it to him, and he refused to take it!’

His siblings look at each other in blatant shock. 

‘You _ what _?’ Luther says, frowning in disbelief. 

‘He’s got a death wish,’ Diego mutters. 

Allison shakes her head, now staring at Klaus like he’s a total stranger. ‘You’re saying this human knows exactly what you are?’ 

‘Yeah,’ Klaus says, wrapping his arms around his middle as though to guard himself. ‘He does.’ 

She laughs, pained and unamused. ‘I can’t believe this. Don’t you remember _anything_ we’ve been taught? All those stories - we’ve been warned our entire lives not to do exactly this.’

‘Of course I remember! It just wasn’t relevant. I think I would’ve noticed if he was hunting Five and Ben -’ 

‘He could have told someone, Klaus. Anyone.’ 

Klaus shakes his head fervently. ‘He wouldn’t. I know him, he wouldn’t do that.’ 

‘He’s human,’ Luther says again.

‘What does that even mean?’ Klaus gestures at the lot of them. ‘We’re not actually that different, you know.’ 

It’s a bad thing to say. He catches Vanya’s wince out of the corner of his eye, while Diego scowls, saying bitterly, ‘We’re _ nothing _ like them. They’ve taken our brothers. They’ve kidnapped our kind for generations upon generations.’

‘And all it took was one to kidnap you for you to begin spouting this nonsense,’ Luther says. 

‘I _ told _you, he didn’t-’ Klaus hisses, before cutting himself off. ‘Actually, you know what? I don’t have to listen to this. None of you know what you’re talking about.’ He steps back towards the rocks, where their skins are hidden. 

‘Wait - where are you going?’ Vanya asks in rush, panicked. 

‘Back,’ Klaus says.

There’s cries of outrage from them all. 

‘Klaus, no!’

‘Back? You can’t go back!’

‘Why not?’ he demands, turning back around in an exasperated whirl. ‘This way I can actually do something. I’ll be of more use to Ben and Five there than I am here.’ 

Diego storms over to Klaus, and he jabs him in the chest. ‘You should have been here the whole time!’ he snarls. ‘Our brothers are gone_ , _captured, maybe even dead, and you weren’t even here! That’s when it mattered!’

Klaus pushes his hand away, glaring, while his stomach flips and twists with guilt. ‘I know! You think I don’t regret that?’ 

‘Not now that you’re abandoning us again,’ he retorts, and as Klaus goes to step past him he grabs Klaus’s wrist, holding him in place. 

He tries to pull his arm away, but Diego is stronger than he is. 

‘Let me go!’ 

‘Make me!’ 

Klaus struggles harder, then rams his whole body into Diego so violently that the two of them go stumbling, and the vicelike hold on his arm is freed. 

‘Stop it, both of you!’ Allison yells, stepping between them before they catch their balance, her chin up, eyes flashing - regal and dangerous. ‘We can’t let you go back, Klaus. You’re not in your right mind.’ 

‘We can’t lose you too,’ Vanya adds. 

Diego is tense, like he’s ready to pounce on Klaus again if he moves to escape. He shakes his head at Klaus, and mutters, ‘I’m not going to watch you swim right into a trap.’

‘Come with me, then,’ Klaus says. ‘Come with me and we’ll do something about it. We’ll find them.’

‘He’s lost it,’ Luther says. ‘The human’s bewitched him.’

‘Oh my _ god _ ,’ he groans, momentarily slipping into Dave’s language. It fits the frustration he’s feeling. ‘I’m not bewitched. I’m not crazy. I’m utterly serious, and you need to listen to me, _ please. _’ He takes a deep breath, and for once his siblings don’t interrupt him. ‘We’re no use to them in the sea. But if we’re in these bodies, we actually have a chance of finding them, of helping them. And Dave can - please, don’t argue, just hear me out. Dave can help us. He knows things - he has this… this machine that can track them down. We’ve been working on it already. I can ask him to fix it faster, and when it’s done it’ll work its magic and tell us where the hunter lives, and we can go after them.’ 

There’s a heavy, awkward pause.

‘You really trust him?’ Vanya asks. 

‘I do. I didn’t at first. I’m not stupid. But he earned my trust. And I know I’ve been gone, and that you’re angry and scared, and I know that I’ve been reckless with your lives, but I need you all to trust me about him. If we swim there now, we can change again before dawn. You can hide your skins wherever you like, in different places all over the island. I swear to you, he will not look for them.’ 

‘How far?’ Luther asks gruffly. It’s not outright denial, which is more than Klaus could have hoped for. 

‘Not far at all. The island with the light.’ 

Diego groans. ‘You went there? Seriously?’

‘_ Yes. _And I lived, didn’t I?’ Klaus asks, while Diego simply folds his arms and scowls. ‘So, what’s the consensus, dear family?’

Slowly, Allison says, ‘I think... we should go.’ She doesn’t sound very certain at all. ‘It’s... honestly the best chance we have at finding Ben and Five.’ 

Vanya nods in agreement. ‘Klaus is right. We’re more help in these bodies.’

‘It’s risky,’ Luther says. 

Klaus sighs, frustrated. The isolated beach is quiet except for them and the crash of the waves, yet he cannot shake the feeling of being watched under the glaring attention of his family. ‘Our whole _ lives _are risky!’ 

‘Speak for yourself,’ Diego snipes. 

‘Quit it, you two,’ Luther says. ‘Look - we should vote.’

Klaus tilts his jaw up, hoping that this vote will work in his favour. It has to. 

‘Hands up if you think we should swim to this human’s island for his… help.’ 

There’s a moment’s pause when no one puts their hand up except for Klaus - and he knows his vote doesn’t really count in this instance - the rest all just looking at each other with darkly glimmering eyes. Then Vanya hesitantly raises her hand, followed by Allison, more confident. Finally, Luther sighs and lifts his large hand too. Diego crosses his arms tighter, and doesn’t budge. 

‘That’s it, then,’ Luther says. ‘We’re going.’

Diego snorts scornfully. ‘When this all inevitably goes wrong -’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Allison says, ‘we’ll never hear the end of it. We know.’ 

Klaus taps his foot restlessly, looking about the moonlit beach - silvery sand and black expanse of water. ‘We should go now.’

‘There’s plenty of time until dawn, don’t worry.’ 

‘I know… I just have a funny feeling.’ It is true, but also the news about Ben and Five hit him hard and he’s been feeling off ever since he heard. Somewhat hating himself for not being here. He can’t tell his family that though. He just needs to do something. 

Vanya comes up to him, putting her arm through his. The close contact is comforting. ‘Come on then,’ she says quietly, nudging him forward. ‘Let’s go.’

The two of them walk back to where their skins are hidden in the rocks, the others following close behind. Out in the distance, the pale beam from the lighthouse circles around and around. Klaus squints his eyes and imagines Dave up in the top room, or snoring softly in bed, or pacing along the rickety garden fence, scarf wrapped over his mouth and nose, listening out for feet on pebbles -

‘We’ll find them,’ Vanya says, staring out too, and Klaus feels another rush of guilt.

‘Yeah,’ he says, voice tight.

They reach the rocks and Vanya kneels, reaching her hand inside the crack where she’d hidden her fur. Before Klaus can move over to the rock pool which marked the hollow where he’d hidden his own skin, her brow furrows and she begins to search more viciously, leaning in until her whole arm is vanished within. 

‘I can’t reach it,’ she mutters.

‘Want me to try?’ Klaus offers. His arms are long and spindly in comparison to his tiny sister. 

She nods, moving to let him get them out, but his hand merely scrabbles along the rock and the tangles of damp, slimy seaweed inside, no fur to be found. 

‘Can you find it?’ she asks anxiously, leaning over him, hair tickling his neck. 

‘It’s not -’ he starts. ‘I don’t understand, it’s not…’ He sweeps across the floor of the narrow crack once more, coming up with nothing. Distantly, he’s aware of the other three reaching their own hiding places. ‘You sure you hid it in here?’ 

‘Of course!’ she cries, before pushing him aside to try looking again for herself. 

Klaus stumbles back, frowning, then he scrambles over to the rock pool as a sickening fear turns his blood cold. The clump of seaweed he used to hide his own has been moved, and the hollow where his skin should be awaiting him is horrifyingly empty. He feels suddenly dizzy, a clammy rush of nausea in his throat, and he falls to his knees, ignoring the sharp scrape of the rock, tossing sea detritus from the hollow, long chains of neptune’s necklace flying over his shoulder, as well as shards of driftwood and broken shells. He’s in a frenzy, because it’s _ gone, _his skin, his own self - he’s never, ever lost it before, he’s always known exactly where it is, but he can’t find it now on this island where there aren’t even any humans, no one but his family. He can’t breathe properly. The world has narrowed in, everything else ceasing to exist except the rock pool in front of him and his own two hands, no sound, no sight, no feeling except stifling, strangling panic…

A piercing scream splits the air. Klaus freezes, eyes wide, hairs standing on end - and he stands up too, scanning the beach, and in the bright moonlight he can see clearly as Allison grapples with two broad men clad in dark clothes, dark mud and visors on their faces. Before he knows it, he’s moving towards her, baring his teeth, ready to sink them into an arm or two, to set her free from these monsters. He sees Luther running towards her too, but there’s an awful, ringing crack, and then Luther stumbles, collapses, unconscious. 

He can hear Diego and Vanya fighting with someone else behind him, and Allison is still screaming, thrashing against her captors, and Klaus is running as fast as he can towards her when another crack rings out. There’s a flashing burn of pain in his leg, which gives out beneath him as he takes his next step, numbness flooding out from the bite, and as he falls to the ground, vision greying out, he hears another crack, then another in quick succession, and he knows that none of them will make it to Dave’s island tonight. 

~~~

When the sun rises, the sea is stained crimson. _ Sailor’s warning, _Dave thinks emptily, his expression blank as he stares out at the horizon. 

Serves him right for hoping. 

~~~

Klaus wakes. He’s lying on a cold, smooth floor - the smoothest stone he’s ever felt. When he opens his eyes he has to squint - the room is too bright. Harsh lights from up above. 

He feels nauseous, and props himself up with one arm as he gets his bearings. It’s a small room, empty but for him and a toilet and sink in the corner. There’s a door, with bars on it. He gets up, head spinning, and goes to try and open it up. There’s no handle, so with his hands clamped around the bars, he pushes and pulls with as much strength as he can muster - which isn’t much. His limbs are still like jelly from the sleeping poison they shot into him - he can see the wound on his thigh, an angry red mark with a little crust of dried blood. Frustrated, he rattles the bar, metal clanging, then lets out a cry, kicking out with his foot. It gains him nothing but a bruised toe. 

‘Who’s there?’ says a voice from beyond where he can see, out somewhere in the hallway. 

Klaus holds his tongue, hesitant. But the voice is familiar, and it’s speaking in his family’s language. ‘Ben? Is that you?’ 

There’s a choked sound. ‘Klaus?’

‘Yeah, it’s me, Benny.’ 

He hears footsteps, soles quiet against the unnaturally flat floor, then the soft clang as Ben leans up against his own cell door. ‘Reach through,’ Ben says. 

Klaus obeys, twisting so he can push his arm through entirely. He stretches as far as he can, waving his hands, fingertips wide, and they brush against Ben’s, featherlight, the briefest of touches. He stretches to the point of cramp, if only to secure his grasp of Ben’s hand. Ben must do so too, because it works, and they hold on tight. 

‘Oh, god,’ Klaus says. ‘I thought... I thought you were dead.’ 

Ben’s fingertips curl, hooking against Klaus’s own. It’s a strained position, but neither of them want to let go. 

‘I thought _ you _were dead,’ Ben replies. 

‘Sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.’ 

Ben’s quiet. His fingers squeeze instead of words. 

‘They took our skins, Ben,’ Klaus says, shuddering at the memory of it.

‘Mine too.’ Then, ‘Not just you?’ 

‘No. All of us. They got all of us.’ 

Ben’s hand trembles. ‘How?’ 

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ 

There’s a beeping sound somewhere else down the hallway, and Ben’s hand shoots out of Klaus’s grasp. Klaus stands at his door, hands back on the bars, trying to peer out to see what’s happening. He can hear footsteps. A couple of people, by the sounds of it. Grunting, like they’re lifting something heavy, and then a thud as whatever is in their arms is dropped on the cold, grey floor. 

‘Lock it before it wakes up,’ one says.

‘Keys?’ says the other. 

‘Ah, shit.’ There’s a jangle of metal. ‘There you go.’

‘Hey!’ Klaus shouts. ‘Let me out!’ He shakes the door again, and it echoes in the cell and down the hall. 

‘Quiet!’ one of the men barks. 

He bangs his hands on the bars, making as much of a racket as he can. ‘No!’ he yells. ‘Let me go, you monsters!’ 

Heavy boots come his way, until one of the dark-clothed thugs from the beach is standing in front of his cell. ‘I said, be _ quiet _,’ he says, holding out a mechanical rod ominously. 

Klaus bares his teeth at the sight of him, hissing, and he tries to push his face through the too-narrow bars, willing the man’s hand to come closer so that he can bite. 

‘Don’t test them,’ Ben warns, but Klaus doesn’t listen. He’s pure elastic-snapping rage. 

The man glances at Ben’s cage, frowning. ‘What’s that? What’re you saying to him?’

‘He’s saying you’re dead meat,’ Klaus hisses. 

The hunter looks back at him, jabbing the rod closer. ‘I thought I told you to shut up.’ 

‘Fuck you,’ Klaus snarls, hand whipping out fast as lightning to grab the stick in the man’s hand, other hand clawing into the man’s wrist, pulling him flush against the door. He digs his nails in, drawing blood. Waves the stick at him, watching the man’s eyes widen in fear. ‘What’s this do, hm? Does it make things hurt?’ He jabs it towards the man. 

‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘No, please!’ 

The other hunter has run down to help his fellow, and he’s wrestling his own weapon from his belt, jabbing it against Klaus’s skin. He was about to claw at that man too but before he can a jolt of electricity surges from the weapon, and it makes Klaus cramp up, his whole body folding in two as he drops the man’s arm, falling to the floor. He groans, lost in excruciating pain and the stolen weapon falls too, rolling deeper into the cell. 

‘He’s got my taser!’ the first hunter cries, cradling his scratched arm. 

‘No shit,’ says the other. 

‘He just - just grabbed it out of nowhere -’ 

The burning, all-encompassing pain ceases. Klaus’s muscles relax and he sinks into the ground, panting, unable to speak. The second guard points the weapon at him again, and says, ‘You pass that one back to us like a good boy, now.’ 

Klaus glares back at him. 

‘You can’t play dumb now,’ he adds. ‘I know you can understand us. The taser - slide it over. Or you’ll get another taste of this.’ He shakes the one he’s holding tauntingly. 

Klaus doesn’t move. He grits his teeth, bracing himself for the shock - and it comes the next moment, immobilising him where he lies. He vaguely hears the door open, senses someone stepping over him. Each second feels elongated, eye-wateringly painful, every part of his body buzzing and frying and stinging and melting and stretching -

And then it’s over once more. He can breathe again, think again. He aches all over. 

The door to his cage is being locked again, and before he’s found the strength to lift his head, to wipe the blurring tears from his eyes, the two hunters have retreated back down the hall and out of sight. A door slams. 

‘Klaus?’ asks Ben from the other side of the cinderblock wall. ‘Are you alright?’

He groans. ‘Hurts.’ 

‘Yeah, I know.’ 

‘Ugh,’ Klaus says, lying still. After a series of long, deep breaths, he forces himself to sit up. ‘They did this to you too?’ How he manages to string so many words together, he doesn’t know. 

‘Not in this body,’ Ben answers. 

‘Why-’ Klaus starts, before a wave of nausea washes over him, swallowing his words. He rests his head on his knees, trembling. ‘Why’d you change?’ 

‘I didn’t have a choice.’ There’s a rustling sound, like cloth dragging on the floor. ‘Reach over,’ Ben says, and Klaus gets to his feet, once again stretching his arm out through the bars. Ben passes him something soft - a blanket. ‘Wrap this round yourself. It’ll keep you warm.’ 

‘Don’t you -’ 

‘I have clothes. I don’t need it.’ 

‘Right. Thanks.’ Klaus swings the blanket around his shoulders. 

‘I meant it,’ Ben says seriously. ‘Don’t test them. You can’t imagine…’ His voice goes all tight and flat again. ‘Just… the taser’s nothing. Some of the things he does.’ 

Klaus swallows. ‘What do they want with us?’ 

‘I have no idea,’ Ben says. ‘No idea at all.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so .. I'm sorry
> 
> Just a heads up, the next few chapters are going to be pretty dark too. If you don't want to read on I totally understand because this is a major change in tone/content!!


	13. The Cage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: medical experimentation, abuse

The hallway Klaus can see from his door is the same hallway that all his siblings see from their own doors. None of them can see each other, as the wall opposite is made of solid bricks. They can hear each other though, and when Klaus is removed from his cage he catches glimpses of his family one by one, solemn faces staring out from between the bars. 

The passage of time is marked most consistently by the lights. They switch on in the early morning, flooding their prison with harsh white light, rousing the inhabitants from sleep, then switch off again in what is presumably the evening, plunging them into a darkness that is absolute. There are no windows. There is no sun, no stars, no moon. If it weren’t for the days when they are taken out from this place, Klaus thinks that he might begin to believe that time itself had been suspended, that day and night no longer exist. 

They get food delivered to their cages. Sometimes cold meat, slices of raw fish. Other times human food - bland, steaming mush that tastes nothing like the oatmeal Dave used to make for him, covered in brown sugar and cinnamon. 

There’s not much to do in the cages except pace and daydream. He can hear Diego hitting things sometimes, through the thick wall that separates them. Luther’s beyond Diego. In the early days he would throw himself at the bars, trying to break through. These days he doesn’t make much noise. Vanya and Allison hum together - their cages are nearest to the exit, voices floating back down the corridor to Klaus, then to Ben, then to Five. Klaus hums along with them occasionally. Other times he simply listens, unable to drum up the energy to do anything but sit and stare listlessly. He talks to Ben a lot. They have always been close, and if they sit in the corner by their shared wall, they can murmur to each other without most of the others overhearing.

Klaus spends a lot of time lying on his thin mattress on the floor, eyes closed, picturing Dave and the island. The memories don’t quite seem real anymore. He wonders if he imagined the whole thing, if he never truly was a seal that stole onto forbidden land, if he’s always been a poor, trapped creature, stuck in this lifeless cage. 

His skin is dry. As is his mouth. When the lights are off and he sleeps, his dreams are blue. He hears the roar of the waves in his mind when the silence becomes too much. The taste of fish, when they get it, makes him sigh and crave more, fresher, tastier, but they never do, not while they’re in here. Sometimes he wakes up before the lights are switched on and he wonders whether at that moment the sun is creeping towards the horizon out in the big wide world, whether Dave is waking too, whether he’s slipping outside and up the hill to work his magic with the wonderful light of his. Sometimes when he wakes all he can think of is his pelt, and he walks back and forth restlessly until his feet ache, trying the door again and again. 

‘Please,’ he moans under his breath, rattling it in its frame. ‘Please. I need to get out. I need to -’ 

‘Klaus,’ says Ben, next door. ‘Snap out of it.’ He’s not being unkind. The bluntness is necessary. It happens to them all - the pain of being split apart from their other body, the hopeless mourning. They try their best to help each other. 

Klaus feels like he might be wrenched apart with how much he longs to be reunited with his skin. It rises in his throat as a sob.

On the other side, Diego’s door creaks. It means he’s leaning against it, holding out his hand. ‘Over here,’ he calls to Klaus. ‘We’re with you.’ 

Blinking, somewhat dazed, Klaus pokes his arm through. Diego’s fingers graze his knuckles, then grasp on tight. It’s soothing. He feels less alone. The last person who touched him was - 

Was - 

The man. The hunter, the _ true _ hunter, the one who commands all the others. Klaus doesn’t know his name. None of them do. He’s old, and cruel. There’s no end to his curiosity. _ When I do this, does it hurt you? _ No end to his demands. _ Move! Faster! _ His chilling reminders. _ Remember what I told you, creature - obey me and you will be rewarded. Disobey, and you will be punished. Do you understand? _

All that fire and fight from the first few days - the very things Ben warned him to cease? They’re long gone now. It didn’t take long. If he’s good - and he is almost always good these days, because the alternative is being bad, and thus being in pain, being hungry, being alone - he gets treats. At first it just means not being shocked, nor being shot with tranquilisers. Then it means delicious things for his dinner - fresh salmon, sometimes even squid - his favourite. And then, when he’s been especially good, he gets to go out to wander in the fresh air outside of their prison: there’s a small walled garden with a gnarled, ornamental tree; some moss growing over the bricks, fuzzy to touch; weak winter sun dancing over his eyelids; ants and beetles traipsing along their one-minded trails; birds flying overheard; sometimes flakes of snow falling slowly, like feathers; and distantly the sound of many, many people drifting in on the wind. He gets half an hour to do what he likes out there, and after so long inside it’s overwhelming. So many smells and sights and sounds. Even when he’s out of his cage with the hunter, they stay in a dark room underground, where he’s poked and prodded and constantly watched. Here, Klaus is free. Of course, there’s always a guard loitering near the door. Sometimes they follow him. Bother him. Other times they lean back, bored. But he doesn’t care for them. He lets the cold nip at his fingers and takes deep breaths. He’s here to enjoy his reward. 

So he’s learnt to be good. That’s what the hunter wants. It’s not as hard as he thought it would be, and the longer he goes without his skin, the tamer he feels. 

It was never like this with Dave, but then Dave never stole it. Klaus was still wild. 

He’s the hunter’s selkie, now. They all are. Perhaps that’s part of it - the reason as to why he and his siblings lose the will to fight so quick. The hunter has part of their souls tight in his grip, secreted away somewhere they’ll never find, and with that he commands their obedience. It’s the easiest path to docility.

Some days, the days when he hasn’t woken with the hollow, burning ache for his other self, Klaus even thinks that he doesn’t really mind it here at all. He misses Dave, misses the sea - but there’s something so _ easy _about being here. Each day that passes, those old connections weaken, and the new one, his ties to the hunter - they grow stronger. Sometimes, as winter melts into spring, he forgets what it is like not to be caught in such a way. 

The hunter whose name he does not know makes him stand on a flat metal platform that sinks down with Klaus’s weight. He makes Klaus hold his arm out long, and he measures it with a tape measure - one just like those that Dave used, flimsy with a metal tip that is cool when it presses against his skin. The hunter measures him from head to toe, prodding him with his stick to get Klaus standing up straighter, make him hold his head aloft, chastising him not to slouch. He’s gotten into the habit of slouching. Every day that he’s in that cage he folds in on himself a little more. Shrinking, slouching, dissipating. Soon he’ll be little more than sea mist blown apart on the wind. 

The hunter makes Klaus jump on the spot until he can’t any longer, almost sick with breathlessness. He makes him hold himself flat off the floor for an eternity, elbows shaking. He makes Klaus stick out his tongue, only to put a piece of wood on it, holding it still, making Klaus gag while the hunter peers down his throat. The hunter takes Klaus’s face in his gloved hands, turning it this way and that, forceful; Klaus can only try to keep up, to move where he’s being moved. He tries not to swallow when the hunter puts a bitter, dusty tasting tablet on his tongue. He wants to spit it out. When he goes to, the hunter clamps his hand over Klaus’s mouth, pinches the airways of his nose. Klaus chokes. Still, he doesn’t swallow it. The hunter warns him - he tells him to cooperate, tells him he knows better than Klaus, that he knows what is good for him, and all the while Klaus feels the thing foaming on his tongue and hates it, hates the hunter, hates that he can’t make up his mind for himself. He knows not to struggle against the man, not physically, because that will get him in trouble, get him shocked, a sort of pain he never wants to feel again - but he still doesn’t swallow because this surely isn’t disobedience. He poses no threat. He’s allowed to turn up his nose at his dinner and go hungry for the night. Why should this be any different? 

The hunter nods firmly at the guard standing in the corner and he comes forward, taser aloft. Klaus’s eyes go wide, and he moans, shaking his head. 

‘If you don’t want to be shocked,’ the hunter says, ‘then you will take your medicine. It’s really quite simple.’ 

The tablet’s all but dissolved, bitter poison swilling repulsively in his mouth. Klaus swallows it. The hunter smiles coldly, removes his hand. The guard backs away. 

‘I will be lenient this time,’ says the hunter. ‘You are learning. I am not so callous as to ignore that. But in future, I will not hesitate to punish you if you react so childishly again. I simply do not have the time to put up with such nonsense. Do you understand?’ 

Klaus nods, shivering. 

Most days the hunter circles him like he’s prey, with his clipboard and his pen and his monocle on a slender silver chain. Klaus does his tasks - starjumps, memory tests, puzzles, reactions. How quick can he hit the button? How long does it take before he collapses, exhausted? 

He starts to feel most alive when he’s in that test room. 

He feels it later, the exhaustion, the pulled muscles, when the world fades back to its static dullness, and he’s slumped in his cage, lost, no light filtering down from the surface, no burning drive to seek out the breath of fresh air he so desperately needs. 

There’s no energy left for dreams. Nor questions. There’s no point: the hunter doesn’t permit such trivial nonsense. He never explains what he’s doing. Most days Klaus doesn’t speak at all.

It’s a miracle he and his siblings are allowed to talk to each other from their cages - but then he supposes that simply means they have little hope of escape. What good will talking do when they’re locked in? Their skins are somewhere else entirely. Perhaps even destroyed. Klaus doesn’t want to entertain that as a possibility. 

He’s also stopped wondering what exactly it is that the hunter does with his siblings. While they shared every grim detail in the early days with a morbid kind of curiosity, these days they mostly keep it to themselves. Generally it’s too repetitive to bear any interest. He knows that Allison comes back hoarse, often silent. Five’s more talkative - says he’s being taught things, that the hunter gives him the equivalent of a human education in order to trace his cognitive development. Ben comes back smelling like blood. Luther sleeps too much and every time Klaus glimpses him he looks different, smells different. Diego paces and paces and paces, and sometimes it makes Klaus jump in fright when his brother suddenly pounds his fist into the wall, slams his body against the barred door. Vanya hums to herself, absently, like she’s lost in a world none of them can reach. It’s not the sort of song any of them can hum along to either. 

Klaus gets his medicine. 

One day the hunter stops giving him the various pills. He switches to a needle. Klaus’s eyes go wide and he thrashes against the guards that are restraining him, desperately afraid of all things that poke and pierce. 

‘Calm yourself,’ the hunter orders him. ‘Or are you no better than a wild animal?’ 

_ I am a wild animal, _he thinks, over and over, as he is forced still with rough hands, as the needle pricks him. There’s a drop of blood; he can see it from the corner of his eye. 

_ Dark magic. Blood magic. _

Whatever it is that has been forced into him, it wracks his body with aching cramps. He heaves on the ground, retching up nothing. He did not get food today. 

The hunter checks his pulse, checks his eyes. ‘It’s happening faster, at the very least,’ he says in that dried up, cruel voice, talking to his assistant with the clipboard. ‘And the effects appear to be similar to those experienced by Number One. Dilated pupils. His temperature is rising fast. We shall see in time, I suppose.’

All the while Klaus lies on the cold concrete floor as his insides burn. Everything he knows of himself is melting away. His vision pops with white and soon he cannot see at all, as he sinks into the deepest, darkest crevasse, where pain does not exist. Where he can float on the outgoing tide forever and ever. 

When he wakes he’s not in his cage. 

The first thing he notices is the smell of water. It’s fresh, not salt, but there’s a lot of it. 

His muscles ache. His spine is stiff. Nausea roils in his stomach. Somehow he manages to sit up anyway, head lolling like it’s forgotten how to hold itself up. 

When his eyes finally open, he stares uncomprehendingly at the pool in front of him, at the water gently lapping at the edges, crystal clear and pale blue. 

Is he supposed to swim in it? Is that his task? 

He crawls to the edge, casting paranoid glances back over his shoulder. But he’s alone. He can’t remember the last time he was alone. 

Tentatively, he reaches down off the ledge and dips his hand into the water. 

His skin - so dry, so thirsty - sings out. A sob falls from his lips. It’s so cold, so familiar, an embrace like no other, and he doesn’t even think as he rolls in with a splash, sinking down, no air in his lungs. It’s been too long. Too long. 

Beneath, he opens his mouth and his eyes and shakes his head and feels the rush of it everywhere, the way it holds him close. His toes nudge the gritty bottom. He hears his own heart like thunder. It’s not long at all before these weak lungs cry out and he breaks up to the surface - but only for a moment. Only to gasp for breath then duck right back under. 

Now he’s in and less overwhelmed, he notices a dark shadow in the far corner. He swims over to it, curious. 

The shock that jolts through him when he recognises it is almost as powerful as the tasers. Every hair on his body stands up. Whatever part of him that had been broken into pieces snaps back together, and where moments ago he was calmly swimming, now he turns feral. If the hunter was here, if he tried to stand in Klaus’s way… Klaus might have ripped his throat out with his own teeth. 

That must be why he was left alone for this bit, he realises, later. 

His vision fuzzes. The rush of blood in his ears builds into a deafening roar. Kicking furiously, he dives down to his sealskin - it’s in the deep end, abandoned - forgetting everything else in the world except that he must have it in his arms once again. 

He doesn’t even remember changing back. 

It’s a long while later when he finally calms. If he were in the ocean, he’d be far out to sea by now, but in this little pool all he can do is swim in circles. 

He leaps up out of the water to rest awhile. He barely settles before a door clatters open, and the hunter strolls in with a couple of his thugs.

The selkie slides back in a frantic hurry, dipping back into the water, eyes wide with fear. He’s _ changed. _The punishment for such a thing will be terrible, and he won’t be able to change back no matter what the hunter does to him, no matter how hard he tries.

Nets swoop down into the water on either side, cutting him off from the rest of the pool. He can hear the hunter calling him, but decides he’ll stay under as long as he can - at least here he feels somewhat safe.

His lungs can only hold out so long. 

The hunter scolds him when he rises up. He orders him to do something - to change back, surely - and the selkie whines, distressed, wanting to slip back into the water but already they’re pulling a cover over it so he’s trapped with nowhere else to go. Growing more crazed and afraid by the minute, he can’t understand the hunter, he can’t change, yet he can’t tell him that, he can’t say anything at all - and the hunter points his cane at the selkie then at the guards with their tasers, and they approach, a slow deadly march staring straight into his eyes, and he cries because he’s stuck like this until the full moon, doesn’t even know what phase it is in, whether it’s high tide or low, and he doesn’t want to be hurt again, he just wants to swim as far away from here as he can -

A guard shocks him.

‘Change!’ the hunter barks. He recognises the word; it’s all he’s saying. ‘Change! Do it!’

A nod, another shock. He hurts, he wants to roll up, but the shock spilts his side, forces him to move in ways out of his control. It fills him with a bitter rage when it’s over and, snarling, he moves forward to the hunter, rising up as he goes, unfurling, furious, preparing to lunge. He clicks back with his joints and feels a familiar stretch, instinct taking over - and he continues to rise up while his skin slips off and pools at his feet.

‘Excellent,’ the hunter says. 

Klaus falters, confused. This shouldn’t be possible.

Before he has time to process, the guards have him secured. They carry him back to his cage and he does not make a sound, even as the image of his skin as the hunter leans down to pick it up burns into his memory. That it’s been touched by him makes him feel unclean. He vows to get it back. He _ will _ find it and he will soak it in the roughest, wildest waves until the stench of dark magic is gone from it.

The dark magic won’t ever be gone from him, though. He can feel it, even now, the remnant echoes of his impossible transformation. 

Something in him has been changed for good.


	14. The Rebellion

Luther was the first to have the spell cast on him, the blood magic that changed them irrevocably. It was clunkier with him. Took longer. He still doesn’t say much, didn’t breathe a word about it when it was happening, but Klaus thinks it was more painful for him too. And Klaus suffered plenty. 

He was second. Luther saw him when he was brought back - could smell the water on him, smell the change. Saw it on his face too, probably: the animal come back out of the shadows. Jumpy. Hungry. 

Luther did what Luther does best, and got everyone’s attention for a discussion. It took Klaus a while, but soon enough he told them everything. 

_ He did something to me. Stabbed me. Some magic. And it was horrible. But then I had my skin. And I changed. And I swam.  _

_ Then I changed right back. He was there, he was happy. I think I could do it again if I tried.  _

Something in him had been unlatched, something he didn’t fully understand yet. 

At least the others had fair warning. Their turn followed in the coming days. One at a time. God forbid they share their suffering any closer than that. 

The change it wreaks in them all is minute enough that the hunter and his cronies don’t notice, too preoccupied with the other, stranger change. But it’s glaringly obvious to the selkies. While they’re still caged, still separated from their skins, their spirits have reawoken from their deep, stifling slumbers, like a slap in the face, like a sudden epiphany. They have their fight back.

Klaus, for one, remembers that he is a slippery creature. Always has been. Always will be. And this cage has held him for long enough. 

He can’t fit through the bars. He can’t escape the hunter’s watchful gaze. The walls of the courtyard are far too tall for him to climb, on those brief occasions he gets out. But he’s slippery in more ways than one. While sneaking off is his preferred tactic, he’s also good at snapping things up in the blink of an eye: 

A loose bit of twine slipped under his foot, then into his hand, then into his pocket. A ballpoint pen left behind by the odd assistant Pogo. A smooth pebble from the courtyard, cool against his palm. The newspaper a guard was reading, thrown aside then stuffed into Klaus’s pants. He can hardly read beyond sounding out the letters like Dave taught him a lifetime ago, but he takes it nonetheless. He takes anything he can. How many hours he’s spent eyeing up the keys chained to the guards’ belts, he doesn’t know. They would be his greatest prize, even as he knows it’s merely a pipe dream. He hears the jangle of them in his head even when there is no one around in the quiet of the nights. 

There’s a groove in the floor at the back of his cage, a small slit right next to the wall. It’s wide enough to fit things inside it, things that can’t be seen from the outside, and that’s where he keeps his treasures.

Maybe they’re useless. But he’s doing something, at least, and that’s better than before. 

As for his siblings, their own rebellions take various shapes. Luther invites them all to discuss plans more than ever before, while Five throws himself into the studies with the hunter, seeking out whatever information might be useful - always clever, ever observant, he’s their greatest hope in that arena. Allison practices her singing, stories that remind them of the unforgiving wildness of the ocean, of the taste of their freedom. Stories that will pierce human hearts with ice-cold fear. Vanya makes mischief. She refuses to do what the hunter asks until the very last minute, testing his patience - and even when he threatens her with punishment, she is not afraid. None of them are as afraid as they were anymore. 

Like Klaus, Ben starts to collect things - but his treasure trove is full of secrets. How he hears and sees the things, the rest of them can’t comprehend, but if ever a question strikes them there’s a good possibilty that Ben will have the answer.

And Diego - he mimics the guards, practices walking like them, talking like them. Klaus can help with that, being the resident expert on human jargon.  _ Know your enemy,  _ Diego says. He talks to them, like he’s their friend. Pretends he’s tame. Tells his siblings that they get along quite well, out in the courtyard, that sometimes they let him sit with them, let him join in their games to pass the time away, never realising that all the while Diego hates their guts.

The rest of them notice, of course, when they stop to chat by Diego’s cage. They don’t talk to the others like that, except to jeer and taunt. They don’t shock him anymore either - but he never does anything bad enough to deserve it. His rebellion is so invisible to the humans, they think he’s properly good now. Becoming like them, a transformation so total, a domestication so thorough, that his wildness is lost for good. 

Soon they’ll learn how wrong they are. 

It all comes to a head the day Klaus slips the screwdriver up his sleeve.

He’s following the hunter down the upstairs corridor at a fast pace, bare feet quiet on the carpet. From the corner of his eye, he sees it sitting upon a wonky windowsill, abandoned, dappled in sunlight that makes the metal glint and shine. 

The hunter has many tools which Klaus can’t even begin to identify, even after all his time with Dave, but he recognises the screwdriver right away. How many nights had he watched Dave fiddling with his beloved gadgets, one of those tools in hand? Klaus even knows how it works. Knows its potential. So when he sees it gleaming brightly, a thrill spikes through him and his hand shoots out. 

It’s up his sleeve a moment later. His step does not even falter. Face remains plain and neutral, but there’s a hardness to his eyes, a satisfaction that makes him hold his chin high, even as the hunter recommences his experiments. Nothing he does can hurt Klaus, not today. 

That night, once they’ve passed it from cage to cage as carefully as they can, once he’s explained exactly the kind of magic it will work on the doors to their cages, he and his siblings get up from their threadbare beds, and they shout and scream and yell at the top of their voices, utterly victorious. They rattle the cage doors and kick at the walls and reach for each other, pressing all their glee into others’ palms. They shake their hands up and down, jump on the spot, whirl around in circles, finally letting themselves be as loud as possible.

Once they have tired themselves to the bone, they settle down individually to sleep, panting breaths - and Klaus sleeps deep, content knowing the screwdriver is safe in the narrow groove beneath him. 

Their plans gain more substance. 

‘We need to go about it carefully,’ Luther says, ‘or else there’s no point. We can’t waste this chance. Keep an ear out, Ben, for anything unusual that we can use to our advantage.’ 

‘Always am,’ Ben replies tiredly. 

‘And for the skins, too.’

Klaus can  _ feel  _ Ben rolling his eyes. ‘Oh, yeah, thanks for the reminder. Can’t believe I forgot all about them.’ 

And more. 

‘I’ve been studying their schedule, and ours,’ Five explains, the newspaper crackling as he spreads the sheet of paper wide. Klaus leant him the paper and the pen a few days ago. Five’s learnt to read now, and to write. ‘I think I’ve got it worked out.’ The sound of a pen circling, their own plan written in the blank spaces amongst the words and pictures. ‘We’ll be in the best position to act three days from now, if you lot can keep your shit together.’ 

‘ _ Five! _ ’ Vanya chastises, while Klaus laughs to himself, feeling proud. 

Five doesn’t even falter. ‘The hunter keeps to the pattern closely, lucky for us, unlucky for him. I would say he doesn’t deserve it, but…’ He clicks his tongue. ‘The guards are a bit more complex, but I’ve worked out the pattern. The ones who’ve warmed up to you, Diego - that’s when they’ll be on shift.’ 

And more. 

‘I got plenty more today,’ Klaus says, making the stones in his pockets rattle. ‘Some are sharp!’ 

And more. 

‘You’re sure you can do it?’ 

Vanya sighs. ‘Yes, Allison. I’m absolutely capable.’ 

‘But I mean… you’ll be alright?’

A softer reply: ‘Yeah. Yeah, I will.’

Klaus feels shivery, listening to them, and he gnaws on his fingernail.

‘You be careful too,’ Vanya adds. ‘All of you. Promise me.’

‘I will if you will,’ Five murmurs.

‘I’ll try.’ Diego. 

‘Of course.’ Luther. 

‘Always am.’ Allison.

‘Mm.’ Ben. 

‘Ugh,’ Klaus says. ‘I can’t stand this. I love you idiots, okay? There. I said it.’ 

He hears the smiles in their voices, through the groans, through the insults, as they all - in their own terrible, wonderful ways - say it back. 

The guard comes for Vanya, right on schedule. The rest of them lie listless in their cages, except for Diego’s. His is empty. If Five is right, he should be on his way to the courtyard for his treat of fresh air and sunshine (or, more likely, rain), after his session with the hunter. 

Just before she leaves, unseen by the guard striding off ahead of her (they are so obedient these days, the guards hardly need to herd), Vanya drops one of Klaus’s many pebbles in the corner of the door frame. As the door slides shut, it catches - not quite closing - and while Allison trills the beeping sound it normally makes, just in case, Klaus jumps to his feet. With trembling hands, he picks up his screwdriver and gets to work, Dave’s voice in his head, the ghost of his hand guiding Klaus’s own:  _ twist it that way to undo, twist it the other to do it up. Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty, that’s the way I like to remember it.  _

The thing fits - only just. The handle turns sweaty in his palm. They have time - he knows this - but still, as fast as possible, that’s the plan - 

‘Klaus?’

‘I’m getting there,’ he says between clenched teeth. ‘It’s fiddly, okay?’ 

Not long later, the first screw drops to the ground, then the next. Two more, and then the hinge creaks. He hits at it, hits at it again, until it falls free of the hinges, lopsided, still held up on the other side by the lock. 

He squeezes through, then gets to work on Allison’s door. Once she’s free, she takes off into the hallway, closely followed by Luther. Then Klaus hurries to free Ben and Five. 

Out in the corridor, they split up. The three of them are on the hunt for their own skins, trying all sorts of doors and cupboards. The trail all the way to the hunter’s test room made by Vanya is open, little stones wedged in all the archways, and the place is familiar enough from their long imprisonment here for them to know their way. Five’s guard schedule goes round and round in their heads. Quiet footsteps and stealthy peeks around corners; slowly they peel their way through the house, searching and searching everywhere they can, leaving no thing unturned. 

Klaus is heading towards the hunter’s storage room. Ben is heading towards the pool of water. And Five is trying to find a way upstairs. 

They barely dare to hope. 

Outside, in the courtyard, Diego should be joking with the guard, playing it cool. If all goes well, when the clock on the guard’s wrist says at least 15 minutes have passed, he’ll ask him whether they can just spend the other 15 inside again -  _ because it’s always so damn cold -  _ and the guard will agree, because they’ve done it before, because he hardly wants to freeze his ass off out there.  _ Our secret,  _ he says, winking, going to swipe his card against the lock. 

Inside, behind the door to the courtyard, Luther and Allison should be biding their time. There will be songs on the tips of their tongues, songs Diego will join in with, so that when the guard jolts in shock upon seeing their faces, the song will overwhelm him - it will be filled with rage and horror and the darkest sadness, and he will sink deep, deep under its spell, visions of hopelessness all that he knows. Allison will continue to sing loudest and closest, while the other two head to the wall. Too high to climb. But not too high when standing on the shoulders of a tall, strong brother. 

Klaus reaches the storage room - locked - but he pulls out his new best friend the screwdriver and sets to work yet again. 

While he breaks into the room jam-packed with horrifying human tools and machinery, Diego clambers up onto Luther’s back, rain spitting on their faces, and Allison sings and sings and sings, voice cracking but still strong. The guard falls to his knees before her, eyes unseeing and fearful - lost somewhere in a world amplifying his own cruelty. Ben reaches the pool and finds nothing except slow-rippling water. Five creeps out into the upper house from their rabbit-warren basement, sniffing, wondering where on earth a man like the hunter would keep things so precious. 

And down in the test room with the hunter, Vanya smiles sweetly. ‘We might make progress with you yet, Number Seven,’ the hunter says. 

To the guard, ‘Take her outside_._’ She’s earned her reward. 

And so Vanya slips her hand into her pocket, feels the smoothness of her last stone, runs her thumb over it again and again. It’s the biggest, the best. 

She thinks to herself that selkies are born from the very waves that wear that roughness smooth. Inside them is the power of the ocean that can grind rocks and shells into sand. 

They will not be tamed, not when such wildness is their mother. 

She feels it surge behind her, the ocean’s strength, as she raises her arm in a swift, fluid movement, and although she dreams of leaping towards the hunter and bringing it down upon his face, shattering that awful monocle, instead she turns towards the small panel on the wall with bright red letters - the one Ben noticed, the one Five deciphered - and the rock shatters through the protective glass, pressing down the button inside. It makes a crunching sound, and then for a brief moment there is stunned silence. The hunter gaping in shock. 

Then a screeching, oh so loud sound begins - it sounds like the world might be falling in - and lights flash urgent red. 

Ben gives up searching when he hears it and drops into the pool. He might as well, with this dead end. The water is stained red with the lights. 

It’s fainter, up at the house. Five swears under his breath, because it means they’re running out of time, and runs deeper into the maze of rooms and hallways, not knowing where to look or go. He runs around a corner and straight into a guard responding to the alert. 

Klaus yelps at the sound and continues to frantically pull out drawers, scattering their contents onto the floor. There’s so much stuff. Strange things all over the walls, shelves everwhere. He tries to tug open a cabinet, but it’s locked. There’s screws but his screwdriver is too big, too clumsy, to fit. He hits his hand against it in frustration. 

Diego is steadying himself against the wall when he hears it, and Luther stretches his hands up, pushing at his brother’s feet. 

‘Come on!’ Luther cries, then with all his might he thrusts Diego upwards, hoping he’ll catch hold of the ledge.

Allison’s voice is drowned out by the alarm. The guard comes back to himself, blinking in confusion. 

Then, ‘ _ HEY! STOP! _ ’ 

Allison narrows her eyes and clenches her fists. 

On the wall, Diego clings by his fingertips, feet scrabbling for a hold. He’s hanging off the top. If only he can find somewhere for his feet to rest, he’ll be able to get himself over, and he’ll be free. 

Everything happens too fast.

‘HURRY!’ Luther shouts, turning to throw a fist into the guard’s stomach before he can reach the wall, taser in hand. Allison has been knocked to the ground behind him by the weapon already, but she’s getting up, and she comes running with a well-aimed kick. 

Diego ignores the chaos of the fight. He braces his foot against the brick, arms straining, and miraculously it doesn’t slip - so he tries the other, and then moves the first, until he’s slowly walking his feet up the wall. He hears the zap of the hated tasers and the sudden pained silence from his siblings, and he ignore this too no matter how much it hurts to do so. 

Then, hyper-aware of the footsteps and heavy breathing of the guard moving beneath him, he holds on as tight as he can and thrusts a leg up and over the top. 

From there, it’s easy. 

Luther and Allison lie on the ground, panting, and they see Diego spare them one final glance from where he’s perched on top, before he hooks his other leg across and disappears over the other side. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dave who?   
these siblings can save themselves! (kind of)
> 
> this chapter's a little more hopeful than the last few. much needed i think as everything in the world is already bleak enough atm.   
lots of love to you all out there xx


	15. The Escape

That night, Diego’s cell remains empty. There’s a guard kept in with them all night, coming at them with the taser when they try to hold each other’s hands. They don’t talk. All of them know not to mention anything about what they know, even when the hunter interrogates them one by one, asking them how they got out of their cages, how they planned such a thing, where Diego has gone. He calls them petulant, threatens them with pain, with hunger, with total darkness. But they keep their heads down, eyes low, mouths shut. Refuse to answer. They take the punishments as they come. 

Soon enough, they get used to the empty cage. They get used to living in uncertainty. Diego is out there somewhere - hopefully safe. He made it over the wall and into the unknown, no pelt to slip into nor knowledge of human society. 

The hunter seems to give it up as a lost cause after a while, the interrogations. His experiments hold much greater importance for him, and soon enough the old routines resurface. Now that their big plan is off in the world and out of their hands, the selkies fall back into numb obedience, and Klaus follows the guards from his cage with his arms limp at his sides and his neck bent, and he doesn’t steal things that catch his eye. 

One night, the lights switch on again after only a few hours of darkness. Klaus isn’t sleeping, wracked with insomnia. He sits up, squinting out at the corridor. There’s the heavy footsteps of the guards and their steel-toed boots. At least three pairs. Low voices. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ says one. 

‘Where -?’ says another, and there’s no response that Klaus can hear, but suddenly the footsteps are pounding down towards his end. 

He backs up against the wall, wrapping his arms tight around himself. His eyes still haven’t fully adjusted to the light when the shadowed figure stops in front of his cage. Klaus sees the guard uniform, though, and he drops his gaze, hoping to be left alone. Especially when the guard steps forward, hands curling around the bars. Whatever’s happening, he wants no part of it. 

‘Klaus?’ 

The voice strikes a chord somewhere in his memory, and he looks up sharply. Blinks hard. ‘_ Dave _?’ 

The face is in shadows but now that he’s looking, properly looking, Klaus recognises him in a heartbeat. His mouth drops open and he breathes a shaky breath, then propels himself forward, up and over to the door, where Dave’s reaching through. 

‘Fuck, Klaus -’ he says, choked up. 

Klaus grabs one of his hands and holds on like his life depends on it. He pushes himself against the bars to slide his hand up Dave’s neck, to cup his cheek, rejoicing in the warmth of him, the roughness of stubble under his fingertips, while he murmurs, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ over and over again. Dave shakes his head, words caught somewhere he can’t find them. 

Further down the corridor, there’s the metallic click of the doors unlocking one by one. 

‘Be as quiet as you can,’ a woman says. 

The person unlocking the cages steps into view. And Klaus thinks he might cry. ‘You did it,’ he says. 

Diego grins at him, slipping the key into the lock, twisting it. ‘Told you.’ 

The door swings open. Diego steps back, and Klaus steps out, hesitant, almost shy, unable to tear his eyes away from Dave. Dave takes the step for him and pulls him into his arms, holding him while Diego moves onto Ben’s cage, then Five’s. 

They don’t say anything. Klaus just holds onto the thin fabric of Dave’s shirt and trembles with emotions he can’t name, erratic gaze jumping from his siblings to the door to the woman down the end who he recognises as Eudora Patch. He expects the hunter to burst in at any moment, or any one of the real guards. Dave rubs his hand up and down Klaus’s arm soothingly. 

‘Right,’ Diego says in their own language, turning towards his siblings. ‘Where can we find the pelts?’ 

They stare at him wide-eyed. 

‘Oh…’ Allison says eventually. ‘We don’t know.’ 

‘What?’ His voice echoes in the deathly-quiet chamber. He points at Klaus, Ben and Five. ‘You were supposed to figure out where they were. That was your one job.’ 

Five grimaces. ‘We know, Diego.’ 

‘It’s not like we didn’t _ try _,’ Klaus adds. 

‘We couldn’t find them,’ Five continues. ‘We didn’t have long enough to look. Ben was too far from everything, down at the pool, half the stuff in Klaus’s room was locked, and I got caught upstairs. It didn’t work. They could be anywhere.’ 

Diego shakes his head, disbelieving. ‘But… we can’t leave without them.’

‘Let’s look for them now, then,’ Luther says, trying to placate and plan. ‘There’s seven of us - nine, even, if the humans help - we’ll be able to cover more ground.’

‘You think we have the time for that?’

‘We have to make time,’ Allison says. 

Beside Klaus, Dave shifts nervously. ‘Sorry to interrupt... but we sort of have to go now. We’re on a bit of a tight schedule.’ 

They all fall silent when Dave speaks. His family isn’t used to speaking in front of a human like this, especially when that human delivers bad news. 

Klaus ignores the chills running through him. His siblings are equally distressed, all furrowed brows and helpless stares. Vanya chews on her lip from behind her curtain of hair. 

‘We should focus on getting out,’ Five says slowly. Uncomfortably.

‘What good is getting out if we don’t have our skins?’ Luther asks. ‘We’ll still be trapped!’

‘Less trapped than we are here,’ Ben says under his breath. 

Klaus sees Eudora check her watch, saying, ‘Dave…’ 

Dave leans close to her, muttering, ‘Just give them a minute.’ 

‘Five’s right,’ Diego says, ignoring the humans. ‘We’re better off on the outside.’

Klaus can feel how antsy Dave is beside him. He wishes his siblings would make up their minds. He doesn’t know what is best, only that he’s not going back in that cage. Not if he can help it. 

‘But… I can’t…’ Luther says, to no one. 

‘You can,’ Allison says, resting her hand on his arm. 'I understand how much it hurts, but we have to leave them behind.’

‘No…’

‘Yes,’ she says, firmly. Then, to the rest of the family, ‘Yes? You all agree?’ 

There’s a despondent murmur of agreement. 

‘Okay,’ Diego says. He turns to Dave and nods. ‘Let’s go.’ 

Dave gives Klaus one last squeeze, then proceeds to lead them out into the corridor. 

Klaus follows him closely. He holds Five’s hand, which gets him a scowl, but nothing in the world could make him let go of his littlest brother. Vanya has Five’s other hand, while Ben walks behind her. The others bring up the rear. 

The corridor is dark. They walk as fast as they can without making noise. Dave has something in his hand which he locks onto the fingerprint scanners that control all the doors. Whatever magic it contains works wonders: the doors beep softly and open up. 

Klaus’s feet are bare, the grating on the floor rough on his soles. He jumps at every shadow, convinced it is a guard coming to haul him back into his cage. 

Dave checks his watch, and turns, holding up two fingers to Diego and Eudora, mouthing, ‘_ Two minutes.’ _

They hurry after that. Klaus rests his hand on Dave’s shoulder as he kneels by the next door, one Klaus has never seen before - his fingers are visibly shaking as he fixes the box onto the lock. Dave doesn’t look up, but Klaus feels the knot of tension under the skin lessen slightly. 

This door opens onto a steep set of stairs going up. Dave goes first, pushes at a trapdoor at the very top, then stays there holding it, waving Klaus onwards.

‘Go,’ he murmurs to Klaus. ‘Run down the hill to the cars. Don’t wait.’ 

‘But-’

‘I’ll be right behind.’ He presses Klaus’s arm urgently. ‘_ Go. _’

Klaus hauls himself out, gets to his feet, and the fresh air is wonderful, the night sky speckled with stars. He stands there for a moment, neck craning upwards, a breeze tousling his hair. The moon is rising near the horizon, a thin slip of light. He can smell the sea. 

Five’s out of the trapdoor now too, given a leg up by Dave - he tugs on Klaus’s hand, hissing, ‘Didn’t you hear the human? Come _on_,’ before pulling him into a run.

Klaus’s blood rushes in his ears as he’s dragged to the bottom of the hill, nearly tripping over his own feet, not looking where he’s going. He’s too busy craning his neck behind him, staring in awe at the enormous mansion that sits atop the crest of the hill, storeys upon storeys rising into the air. He thought Dave’s house was big, but this - this is something else entirely. It’s shrouded in darkness, but still it looms over everything else, imposing. Klaus doesn’t need to imagine getting lost inside, how it feels to be eaten up by its many rooms until the memory of ever entering is devoured too.

Suddenly a light flicks on in one of the lower windows, near a dark shadow which looks like a door.

‘Uh, Five?’ Klaus says, pointing over his shoulder.

Five turns and swears but keeps moving. ‘Hurry up!’

‘We need to go back - we need to help -’

‘No, we need to run.’ 

He can only just see the shadowed figures of four siblings coming down the hill. A fifth - Diego, maybe - closer to the exit. Patch and Dave must still be inside. 

The back door of the house opens. Klaus stifles a shout, and stops short in his tracks. 

‘Klaus,’ Five says, tugging on his hand. ‘Klaus!’

He shakes him off. ‘I can’t leave him.’

‘Don’t be stupid, we’re nearly there -’

Klaus is already running back up the hill. He hears Five groan in exasperation, but he doesn’t care. 

He dodges around Ben and Vanya, but when he reaches Luther and Allison, Luther veers suddenly and grabs him, holding him securely in one strong arm. 

‘No!’ Klaus cries. ‘Let me go!’ 

Luther says nothing, just heaves Klaus over his shoulder and runs with him there. Klaus hammers his fists against Luther’s back as he’s jolted up and down, but it garners no reaction. All Klaus can do is watch the scene at the trapdoor unfold, powerless to do anything to help. 

He can see Eudora pulling Dave out of the hatch. Sees a guard shine a torch on them, then down the hill. It catches in Klaus’s eyes, makes him squeeze them shut, turn his head aside. 

Eudora’s running now, pushed forward by Dave, and the guard lunges out at her but he’s too slow, she’s out of reach and picking up speed, so instead he prowls towards Dave, predator and prey, trapping him between the trapdoor and the wall of the mansion with nowhere to go. Dave holds his hands up. The guard shines his light in Dave’s face. Klaus watches, and watches, despairing. 

When the guard moves to hold Dave against the wall, Klaus screams, ‘_ NO! DAVE!’ _

The cry is wrenched from his throat, scratchy and sharp. He doesn’t see the guard turn in shock at the sound of it, carried up the hill on a sudden seaborne gust, but he does see Dave use the momentary distraction to his advantage, sees the moment he twists, his knee jerking upwards into the guard’s groin. The guard folds in half, and Dave darts away as more lights flick on above him. The house is waking up, but he’s running fast. Faster than anyone will be able to catch him. 

Luther comes to a stop at the bottom of the hill. There are two hulking metal machines - cars, Klaus realises - sitting empty on a flat stretch of road. 

‘Put me down,’ Klaus demands.

‘Will you run back?’ Luther asks. 

‘No.’ He’s planning on it, though. 

‘Just put him in the thing,’ Diego says as he arrives, short of breath and gesturing at the car. ‘The rest of you, get in, quick.’ He goes to the other machine. 

Klaus is unceremoniously dumped in the back seat, Ben on one side and Allison on the other. Luther sits in the front. 

‘They’re coming,’ Allison says, her voice hoarse, pressing her face up to the glass. Klaus leans to look, frozen in dread. More torchlight sweeps across the grass, multiple beams crossing. 

A car door slams, and Klaus turns in a flash to Ben’s window to see what’s going on. The woman called Eudora is at the wheel, frantically fiddling with something; the next moment, the car hums to life, and then screeches, wheels throwing up dust before it speeds away.

Then Dave tears open the door to this car, clambering in as fast as he can. The car shakes as he slams the door, and then it rumbles to life beneath Klaus. His stomach lurches and he grasps at Ben’s shoulder in fright, while Allison’s fingers claw into his arm. 

Then they’re moving, the car jolting forward, picking up pace. It’s unnaturally fast. Klaus clutches Ben even harder.

‘Everyone alright back there?’ Dave says, short of breath. He doesn’t look back, keeps his eyes on the road ahead, both hands clenched around the steering wheel. 

‘I think so,’ Klaus says. His siblings are quiet. They’re not used to speaking to humans like this. ‘Where are we going?’ 

‘Eudora’s house. We’re gonna lie low there and figure out our next steps, now we’ve got the jailbreak out of the way.’ 

‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ he says. He nudges Ben and Allison with his elbows. ‘This is Dave, by the way.’ 

‘Hi,’ Dave says. ‘Sorry we had to meet like this.’ 

Klaus’s siblings look at him, unsure. 

‘He’s good, remember,’ Klaus adds. ‘You can trust him.’

‘Klaus has told us many things about you,’ Allison ventures, overly formal in Dave’s language.

‘Nice things, I hope.’ 

‘You didn’t trap him,’ Luther says. 

‘No. I didn’t. And I don’t ever intend to. Same goes for you lot.’ 

‘You can’t anyway without our skins,’ Ben says. 

‘We’re gonna get them back, though,’ Klaus says. ‘Isn’t that right, Dave? You’ll have some tracker machine that can find them.’ 

‘Well, it’s less a machine and more... well… a search warrant based on human trafficking and illegal experimentation charges. If that makes any sense to you guys. Let’s just say it’s in the works.’ 

Dave veers sharply, and they turn out onto a wider road, lined with streetlights. Down in the valley below them, a town glitters and gleams in the night. And at its edge -

‘Look!’ Klaus exclaims, suddenly overcome with euphoria and a deep, bitter longing. 

As they drive down into the town, he and his siblings can’t take their eyes off their home: the dark expanse of the open ocean, no longer out of reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyyyy, freedom!


	16. The Safe-House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smoking cw

Eudora’s house is small. She and Dave drag a couple of mattresses into the living room. It’s very late now, well past midnight; everyone’s exhausted. 

‘Sorry I can’t offer you all beds of your own,’ she says, plopping down a big pile of blankets before shaking them out one by one, layering them across. ‘I hope this is okay.’ 

‘It’s fine,’ Diego says, going to help her. ‘This is how we usually sleep. All together.’

Klaus watches them work for a moment, standing idle near the doorway. He feels as though he’s forgotten how to speak. All that exhiliration, all those plans, gone now, leaving him all hollowed out. Nothing quite seems real. Not the way the light falls soft and warm from under lampshades, or the spongeyness of the carpet underfoot. There’s a muffled quiet in the room, only the sound of his brother and Eudora smoothing the blankets down. All the other siblings stuck in their own silence, watching carefully. Or not watching at all - only staring at the ground or their own hands. Those human hands that have been theirs every day for so, so long now. 

And their skins: too far away still. They’re no longer with him, but still their lives remain in the hunter’s choking grip. 

Klaus doesn’t want to think about that. 

He creeps out of the room, wanders into the kitchen, looking for Dave: he’s there by the stove, heating water for drinks. Klaus stands by the door, watching him solemnly. He’s still wearing the dark guards’ clothes, a black beanie pulled over his hair. Klaus feels overcome by shyness.

Dave turns, moving towards the cupboard, and jumps slightly when he sees Klaus. He stops, then smiles: unsure, gentle. ‘Hey.’ 

‘Hey.’ Klaus doesn’t really know what to say. Where does he start? He wraps his arms around himself and the thin t-shirt that has become his well-worn uniform, the same as the ones all his siblings wear. ‘I’m cold,’ he says, for lack of anything else. 

Dave smiles at him sadly. ‘Come here, then.’ 

And Dave is warm. He smells like smoke up close and Klaus rests his face against Dave’s. Rough stubble catching against his own. 

‘I missed you,’ Dave says, arms secure around him.

Klaus moves back slightly so he can see Dave’s face. His eyes burn, mouth trembles. ‘I missed you too,’ he says. ‘Lots.’ 

Dave holds him tighter and the kettle begins to whistle. He ignores it for a moment, kissing Klaus softly on the forehead, then reaches to turn off the heat, keeping one arm wrapped around Klaus’s waist. The kettle goes quiet. Klaus drops his head onto Dave’s shoulder, suddenly overcome by a deep exhaustion, though his fingers pluck at the neckline of Dave’s sweater. 

‘Lets get all these drinks made,’ Dave says, ‘then sleep. We can talk in the morning. Sound good?’ 

He hums in assent. Dave’s right. Words are too hard right now. 

~~~

They’re quiet things, huddled together, whispering in that unusual language, not quite words, not quite legible. He and Eudora try to give them space, keeping to themselves in the kitchen - and he supposes they too are speaking in whispers, like they must stay quiet or else alert the whole town to the people hiding in her home. They slowly nurse their drinks, steam curling around their faces, listening to the muffled discussion coming through the wall before eventually it ceases. Finally sleeping. He hopes they feel safe enough to sleep well. 

Compared to the cells they found them in, a few mattresses and blankets on the ground are luxury. Bare concrete, rags for blankets, threadbare clothes. It wasn’t a warm room, their prison. It was airless and claustrophobic and stark. 

He wants to forget the sight of Klaus cringing from him, squinting in the bright. Already, though, it’s seared into his memory, and not for the first time he feels laden with guilt, dragged down by it, numb at the idea that for all these months he’s been idling away the days while Klaus and his family have been trapped. 

Ever since Diego appeared on the shores of his island, the truth became impossible to ignore, the facts he had been steadfastly ignoring crashing down around him. 

It’s his fault. That’s the truth. He should’ve done something sooner. He completed his little project, after all, in those long empty days without Klaus. He hooked up that tracker to his own machine, reversed the signal like he’d planned to do for so long. He found his answer - the identity of the hunter - a name he wanted nothing to do with, not anymore, and then he chose to disregard it. He put it aside for another day. For when Klaus came back - if he came back. 

If he’d had the courage to put two and two together…If he’d known what was at stake…

He’s heard enough from Diego to be horrified. He doesn’t know what he’ll do hearing it from Klaus’s lips. All the things that have happened to him, all the things that have been stolen, and all the while Dave thinking  _ I could have stopped this if I had not been afraid.  _

If he’d bothered to look. If he’d trusted his gut when it told him that Klaus wouldn’t abandon him for good, with no contact, not even as a seal, not unless he had no other choice. If he’d done that, then think how many days of imprisonment he could’ve spared them. 

As his thoughts whirl, he stares sightlessly at the table. The soft thud as Eudora sets her cup down startles him. She’s got that knowing expression on her face, but she bites her tongue, settling for patting his hand briefly and saying, ‘Get some sleep, Katz.’ Kindly, but it’s still a command. 

The morning rises crisp and bright, specked with dew. The sort of freshness in the air that only comes after it has rained heavily throughout the night. 

Dave sits on the front step, smoking. An old bad habit of his that has reared its head again recently. 

He didn’t sleep much. Nerves running a little too high. He gave up eventually and watched the sunrise instead, the early start permanently ironed into his bodyclock by now - and besides, the crimson sky that sprung from the grey has helped to ground him a little. He’s merely a little speck in a big wide world, and the worries that felt so big yesterday come into perspective now, yadda yadda yadda. 

The door creaks behind him. He turns to look, sees Klaus peeking out, and for a moment when Dave exhales smoke there’s a glimmer of that wonderful fascination for the unfamiliar in Klaus’s eyes, a little quirk of surprise. Then it vanishes. Klaus drops his gaze to the ground, his shoulders drooping. He doesn’t say anything - again, like he’s waiting for Dave to make the first move. 

‘Wanna come sit?’ 

Klaus folds himself next to Dave. They’re close, arms touching. It’s a small step they’re sitting on, hidden from the road by shrubbery and the cars (covered with tarpaulins, of course, still without their license plates.) 

‘Is your family awake too?’ 

‘Not yet,’ Klaus says. 

Dave nods. Gives him space to say something else, but after a few moments of listening to only the morning birdsong, he says, ‘Well, I’m glad someone’s getting some sleep.’ 

‘I’m surprised anyone can,’ Klaus mutters. ‘Luther’s snoring louder than ever.’ 

Dave laughs, taken by surprise, while Klaus glances over at him, mouth twitching a little. Dave counts it as a smile and breathes a little easier. 

His Klaus isn’t so lost, after all. 

Taking another drag, he offers his arm out to Klaus, giving him the option of sitting closer. And Klaus takes up the offer, resting against him. His hair’s greasy and he feels thinner than ever before, barely a weight at all, pale from lack of sunlight. And cold. That’s the strangest thing. Klaus feels cold to the touch, like he never did before. 

His hand lifts slowly to Dave’s lips, tracing them with a fingerpoint. It tickles.

‘When did you start breathing fire, then?’ 

‘It’s just smoke.’ 

His hand moves down to Dave’s shoulder, resting easily. Familiar. ‘Can I try?’ 

And oh, that question makes something in Dave sting and ache. ‘You won’t like it,’ he says, feeling like a ghost of himself, repeating words he’s said so many times before.  _ A sip of whisky? Ah, you won’t like it. But try it all the same. And then: retching, and laughing, and trying it again, that screwed up nose, crazy rolling eyes, and always going back for more -  _

Klaus reaches over and plucks it out of Dave’s hand anyway. He puts it straight to his mouth and breathes in deeply, immediately doubling over in a coughing fit. Dave, startled, saves him from burning himself on the cigarette, hand darting in as soon as he can, and thumps him on the back. 

Eventually, Klaus sits up straight again, eyes streaming and red, a victorious grin on his face. ‘Did you see?!’ he croaks excitedly. ‘I breathed smoke, Dave! It was...’ he pauses to cough again, ‘- ah, god… it was  _ awful. _ ’ 

‘I saw,’ Dave says, stubbing the cigarette out. That’s enough of that. With both hands free, he pulls Klaus into his chest, squeezing him close. ‘And it’s awful. It’s a terrible habit. I’m going to quit again, maybe once this whole ordeal is over, so don’t get used to it.’

‘I think I’ll be okay with that.’

‘Yeah? Breathing smoke overrated?’ 

‘Maybe. Just maybe.’ 

Klaus lies against him for a while, and once his breathing returns to normal they breathe in and out together. Dave watches the seagulls flying back out to sea, high, high up in the sky. Returning home. He thinks about how right it feels to have Klaus back with him, even here, so far from their isolated island.

‘I thought about you every day,’ Klaus says. ‘Even when it didn’t seem like there was any point thinking of anything at all.’ 

Dave holds him tighter. 

‘Did Diego tell you much? I know he’s… well, he’s not me. More the silent, gruff type. But -’ 

‘He told me some. Enough to make me nearly sick with anger.’ 

‘Mm. It wasn’t fun.’ Klaus clears his throat. ‘You know, I’m pretty surprised he found you at all. I half expected him to ignore the plan entirely - because he  _ really  _ doesn’t trust you humans. Like,  _ really really  _ doesn’t.’ 

‘Yeah, I noticed that.’ 

‘Oh. Uh… he didn’t… threaten you or anything, did he?’ 

Dave thinks back to the day Diego showed up on the island in a decrepit rowboat, ravenous and mute. Dave spotted him as he was coming into harbour, and went down to investigate, not at all expecting to have a new strange silent man passed out on his couch in the next couple of hours. Diego left a damp patch on the cushions from the water he’d poured over himself - after downing approximately five of them first. All Dave could do was wait for him to wake up, anxious and confused. 

When he did finally wake up, it was early the next morning. He sat up fast, as if alarmed at his surroundings, but froze upon seeing Dave on the other chair. His stare was piercing. Totally unmoving too. It might have been comical if Dave hadn’t been so concerned. 

‘Can I get you anything?’ Dave asked eventually, a hesitant breaking of the silence. 

No reply. 

‘More water? Or some food?’ 

Nothing. Just that unrelenting stare. 

‘Do you speak English?’ 

A blink. Then, ‘Yes.’

‘Oh. Great! I thought, maybe -’ 

The man cut him off, saying in a low voice, ‘I do not trust you.’

Dave faltered. ‘Uh - right. Okay.’ 

‘If it had been up to me,’ he continued, ‘I never would have come here at all. Unfortunately, it is not only my decision. And my brother is very persistent.’ 

‘Your brother?’

‘Yes. Klaus.’ 

His heart skipped. ‘Oh my god… You’re a selkie?’

The man nodded, and the whole situation immediately made a lot more sense. 

‘Is he alright? I haven’t seen him in ages -’ 

‘He is alive.’ 

‘Alive?!’ 

The unfamiliar selkie stood up and began to pace the room, frowning at the floor. He was dressed in a ratty grey shirt, barefoot. Looked unhealthy, almost sallow. 

‘What d’you mean alive?’ Dave demanded. ‘What happened? He didn’t get shot again, did he? Did he?!’ 

‘He is in danger,’ the selkie said, coming to a standstill near the window. He stared out at the sea, not at Dave. ‘Our whole family is.’

Dave’s heart was in his throat. He didn’t know what to say in the slightest. 

‘Klaus sent me to ask you for help,’ the selkie continued. ‘He trusts you, apparently. And though I argued, he also says I will not be able to free them alone. So. You must help us. If you do not, you will never see Klaus again.’ 

His voice shook when he asked, ‘Where is he?’

Klaus’s brother turned to face him. A hard look in his eyes. ‘The mainland. With the hunter.’ 

And it was the moment of realisation for Dave - when two and two made four. Ice cold realisation flooding through him, heavier than stone, suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of blood and gasoline and ash…

It was a tricky alliance between himself and Diego. They stayed at the island for a couple of days while he sorted everything out. Dave called in an emergency replacement. Contacted Eudora. Listened to all that Diego had to tell him, slowly forming a plan in his head.

Then they laid low at Patch’s house for a while longer. It was slightly mortifying, finally sitting down with her and telling her everything she needed to know - who Klaus was, for a start, which meant not only telling her he had a secret boyfriend but also that she’d met him once before as a seal, and that selkies were real, and oh god if there’s ever been a time when he needed her to just take his word for it, this was it, please please please trust me, I swear the island hasn’t turned me crazy. 

Needless to say, there was a reason Eudora was his best friend. He could tell she was cautious, hearing such a ridiculous tale, but she bit her tongue and promised to help anyway. 

It helped that she seemed particularly interested in the brooding stranger he’d brought to her house, who was socially strange enough to add some feasability to Dave’s story, and also very handsome. Diego seemed, if anything, to become somewhat  _ shy  _ around her. Eudora could do no wrong in his eyes. As the stress mounted, that at least gave Dave something to laugh about. 

‘He was fine,’ Dave says to Klaus. ‘A bit intense, maybe. And I think he has a crush on Patch, if you want teasing material.’

He feels Klaus laugh against him. ‘Course he does, the hypocrite.’

‘I don’t think he ever exaggerated, though. About what happened in there.’

Klaus makes a humming sound. 

‘Are you alright? I know it’s… well, it’s a bit of a ridiculous question. Because you’re not. I can tell. But I need to ask anyway. And I need you to know that I am here for you. And also that I will die before I let that man get near you again.’ 

Klaus is quiet for a while. ‘I feel different,’ he says eventually. ‘Maybe because I’ve lost my skin. Maybe because of what he did to us. He did something... I don’t know. I’m not really sure what it was, or how it works. But it’s something new.’ He sighs, leaning harder against Dave and fidgeting. ‘I miss the sea, more than anything. Apart from you. But I think of you when I think of the sea too, so. You know.’ He sits up straight and looks sternly at Dave. ‘Also, don’t you dare die. None of that. I’d much rather have to see the hunter again than lose you, so don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’ll try not to, then.’

‘Good. And I’ll try to be alright again.’ 

Dave touches his face gently. ‘Only when you’re ready. Take your time.’ 

Behind them, the front door creaks and one of Klaus’s siblings peeks out, a woman with a timid demeanour. She looks like she wants to hide, and her hair falls in knotted strands in front of her face - quite like curtains offering a little protection from the world. 

She says Klaus’s name in the way that Dave never can, and Klaus replies to her with sounds that don’t quite register as words to his ears, mixed with gestures, expressions and subtle movements that seem just as much language as the sounds, if not more. 

‘Vanya says sorry for interrupting,’ Klaus says after a while, ‘but she was wondering if she could have some water?’

‘Of course,’ Dave replies. He smiles carefully at Vanya, who seems a little startled that he’s met her gaze. ‘You don’t have to ask. Just help yourself.’ 

‘Oh, she didn’t actually ask,’ Klaus says, getting to his feet and stretching. ‘She’s too shy. I just guessed that’s why she came a-snooping. She doesn’t know how kitchens work anyway. Come on,’ he says to her. ‘I’ll show you how to do it.’ 

Klaus skitters up the steps, draping an arm around his sister’s shoulders. Dave follows, and once he’s inside, he watches as Klaus eagerly demonstrates how the tap works, turning it on and off in quick succession. 

It’s interesting, seeing the way he lights up with energy around his siblings as the seven of them gradually wake up and make their way into the kitchen, sleepily rubbing eyes, pink cheeked and dozy. Compared to their few moments alone, there’s less vulnerability to him now. He takes the centre stage as human expert, proudly explaining in a confusing mix of English and their own unfamiliar language what everything is, re-enacting some things he’s done. It’s probably a good distraction from the prickly uncertainty he must be feeling. Either way, Dave finds it entertaining to watch. He sits at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, quietly observing all the siblings and the way they interact with each other. The snippiness of the little boy despite his age, the grace of the oldest sister. The brothers called Ben and Diego rolling their eyes at Klaus’s antics. The big guy Luther keeping careful tabs on all his siblings - something none of them seem to notice except for Dave. 

There’s a lot of them, and they’re all so different - from him, from each other. He knows a lot of their oddness is because they’re selkies, not quite human. But he can’t help but think that in all their chaos and familial affection, they are extremely human after all. 

At some point in the morning, Eudora comes back from the shop with a bag bursting with fresh fish. Dave heats up a pan and they fry it in batches, serve it fresh with salt and pepper, a small squeeze of lemon, and little else. Fingers grab it hot from the plate, and the room falls silent except for the spit of the next batch cooking. 

Once bellies are full and all the fish is gone, they show the family the bathroom, how the shower works. They help untangle matted and knotted hair, lathering up with conditioner and going at it slowly with a fine-toothed comb, or cutting and snipping where necessary. These selkie bodies unused to staying this form for so long. They find clothes, whether Eudora’s or Dave’s or from a selection Eudora picked up at the charity shop in town - whatever will fit. They let them choose whatever takes their fancy - good-riddance to that grey t-shirt uniform. Clean fabric, colourful patterns. At the end of it all, their motley crew is looking healthier and happier. Hair damp, faces scrubbed, they all settle in Eudora’s sitting room, cross-legged on the floor. 

It’s time to plan their next step. 

‘We need to face the facts,’ Eudora says to the group. ‘After breaking in like that once, it’s going to be impossible to do it again.’ 

‘But we have to go back,’ the boy says. Five. He’s insistent, says it like it’s common sense.

Luther nods once. ‘Our skins are still there.’ 

‘We’re going to get them back,’ Dave assures them. ‘Whatever it takes, you’ll have them again, okay?’ 

‘How, though?’ Allison asks. ‘If we can’t go in? Do you really think he’ll just hand them over?’

‘We know he won’t,’ Eudora says. ‘We’re going to need the law on our side.’

‘Human law,’ Luther scoffs, earning a glare from Diego. 

‘Yes, human law,’ she continues. ‘It’s all we’ve got. We’re human, you lot look human, and Reginald Hargreeves is, unfortunately, human too. Despite all his inhumane deeds.’

‘What has what we look like got to do with it?’ Diego asks. 

‘Well,’ Eudora says slowly, a glint in her eye, ‘it’ll be very, very difficult for Hargreeves to explain exactly how he  _ isn’t  _ guilty of human rights abuse.’ 

Before the great clean up, Eudora had taken photographs of them all. Close ups of their face to see the exhaustion and malnutrition. Photographs that show the state of their maltreatment in detail. She’s keeping that evidence safe. It’s going to be crucial in the days to come. 

‘I’m going to gather your testimonies,’ she continues, ‘and we’ll take Hargreeves to court. Dave and I have dealt with him before, we know what he’s like. It’s been months now, for us, and all that time we’ve been trying to build a solid case to nab him with. He’s been doing whatever he likes in this town for as long as he’s lived here, and now he’s finally gonna answer to everything he’s done. To Dave, and to you all. And once he’s gone, we’ll get your sealskins back, and you’ll all be free.’

Now that the talk has turned serious, Klaus has gone quiet, letting his siblings argue and plot. He listens with his head tilted to the side, eyes sometimes glazing over, nodding and perking up whenever a good point is made. 

But after Eudora’s little speech, Dave feels Klaus’s eyes on him throughout the rest of their planning session. O nce they’re done, Klaus vanishes down the hall. 


	17. The Tale

Excusing himself from the others, Dave follows after Klaus. Finds him sitting on the floor in the spare room. It’s scattered with Dave’s things. 

He closes the door behind himself for a bit of privacy, and sits cross-legged across from Klaus who watches him thoughtfully all the while, chewing on his lip.

‘You know the hunter?’ he asks quietly. 

Dave swallows, then nods. ‘Yeah.’ 

‘For months?’

‘Since before I met you.’

Something uncertain flashes in Klaus’s eyes. ‘You knew he shot me?’ 

‘No,’ Dave says. ‘Absolutely not. No, I didn’t even think - I didn’t want to think. I should’ve, in retrospect, because it was an easy enough connection to make… but I so desperately wanted to distance myself from that part of my life that there was a sort of, I dunno, mental block or something in my way.’ He’s rambling, and Klaus doesn’t look any more convinced. He can’t bear the idea that he’s hurt Klaus through his own wilful ignorance. ‘I just assumed it was a poacher. Someone I didn’t know. If I’d’ve gotten that tracker fixed sooner, I would’ve told you. But I fixed it when you were already gone, and I didn’t know it was because he had you, I swear. As soon as Diego found me, I did everything I could to get you out of there.’

There’s a squeal from the other room, a muffled shout of laughter, and he’s glad he closed the door now. It feels like they’re in their own cocoon. Albeit full of trepidation. 

‘Did you work for him?’ Klaus asks. 

Dave blinks. ‘No! God, no. Not at all. I hate the man.’ 

Just like that, the stiff tension in Klaus relaxes. ‘Oh, good. That’s okay then.’ He laughs a little. ‘I didn’t think you’d like to be friends with him, but I was starting to wonder if maybe I’d just… maybe gotten the wrong idea about you, or something. There’s a lot I don’t know about you still, from before you lived on the island. You never liked to talk about it.’ 

He doesn’t say it accusingly, but still Dave feels guilty. Because he’s right - Dave hid so much from him, never properly discussed it. 

‘I should’ve told you before now,’ he says. 

‘Why didn’t you?’ 

Dave shrugs. ‘I dunno. Like I said, mental block. He… I guess he kind of ruined my life a bit. I used to be braver about things before he got to me.’ 

‘You are brave, though,’ Klaus says. 

‘Not when it comes to him.’ 

‘You rescued me and my family, didn’t you?’ 

‘If I’d been braver - stronger - he would never have gotten you in the first place.’ 

Klaus frowns and grabs Dave’s hands, frustrated. ‘What d’you  _ mean _ ? I don’t see how you could’ve stopped it. We didn’t even see it coming until it was too late!’

‘I could’ve -’

‘Wait, no,’ Klaus says, shaking his head. ‘I need you to explain from the top. What did he even  _ do _ to you, Dave?’

‘It’s a bit of a long story,’ Dave says.

‘You think I mind? You once spent three hours telling me about  _ wires _ , I think I can manage something like this. Seeing as it also happens to be... you know, crucially important to the fate of myself and my family.’

Dave glares at him, lovingly. ‘Okay. Cosy up then.’ He swivels to sit against the bed, and pulls Klaus into his arms. ‘I suppose it starts way back at the start of last year, when I got called out on an emergency job…’ 

~~~

With his tool box in one hand, Dave inches down the corridor. 

‘Hello?’ he calls. His voice echoes in the narrow, dark passage. It’s dimly lit. The floor beneath is a metal grill, with an indeterminable blackness beneath. ‘Mr Pogo?’

That’s the name of whoever called organising his services. They left few instructions. One: fix the air conditioning on the ground floor of the Hargreeves mansion. Two: be done by 4pm sharp, no later. He was here fifteen minutes early - his last job was a breeze - but after waiting at the front door as the minutes ticked on by, ringing the doorbell and knocking intermittently, he eventually tried the handle, wary of running out of time. He knew what he was supposed to be doing and where to find it, after all. And they were expecting him.  _ And _ the door was unlocked. It was hardly breaking and entering. 

He found the unit itself, alright. But the fuse box was another story. He searched most of the ground floor for it, before coming across a panel by an ornate bookcase nearly creaking under the weight of the books and trophies on its shelves. The panel itself was non-descript, and he pried it open, hoping to find an electricity board behind it where he could switch off the power. 

Instead, it revealed a gaping black hole. Shining his torch down, he saw the rungs of a ladder, leading to some sort of basement. It didn’t seem to go too far down. He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see someone who could give him actual directions, but the house was abandoned and quiet. So, all in all, he thought it seemed worth a shot. Ticking clock, all that. 

Half an hour ago and Dave would have said that he was excited to visit the infamous mansion. Everyone knew the place, knew the old philanthropist who lived there all on his own. Now, he’s wishing more than anything that he’d never taken on the job at all. Rather than finding anything resembling a normal basement with a damned fuse box, he’s found something more like a bunker. There’s so much metal. It seems to go on forever. There’s a harsh smell too, like petrol. He craves a breath of fresh air, but of course there’s none to be found in such a stuffy tunnel. Perhaps because of the failure of the air-con he’s supposed to be repairing. 

‘Hello?’ he calls again, tossing up whether he should simply call it a day. ‘Sir Hargreeves? Anyone?’

He shines his torch to his left and realises with a jolt that there’s a door there. There’s a key pad beside it with a biometric thumbprint scanner, which is wildly expensive tech that Dave has only seen a few times before, in government buildings, banks and police offices - and now, he supposes, in the houses of the wealthy. What Hargreeves could possibly need it for, Dave has no idea. He crouches down, placing his tools on the floor with a clatter that echoes down the long hall, and inspects the box with its faintly glowing screen. It’s screwed onto the wall, and there are smudges of fingerprints standing out in stark contrast to the shiny metal, a sign of frequent use. He ghosts his fingers over it, without properly touching, slightly in awe. It’s the sort of lock that is no doubt wired up to an alarm system, perhaps an auto-lock on other doors. There’s no getting in without the passcode. 

Dave goes to get up, and he leans his hand against the door as he does so, and to his immense surprise the door - heavy, cold metal like everything else - shifts with an enduring groan. 

He yanks his hand back as though burned, bracing himself for the sound of sirens. But once the door stops moving, the creaking dies down and there is only silence. 

The door had not been fully closed, then. 

Crossing his fingers that he might find a fuse box inside, Dave takes a quick look down both ends of the tunnel, and pushes the door wide open. 

It reveals a small room. Dark, of course, as everything is, but as he steps a foot past the threshold, the lights flicker on one by one until the room is bright. Near gleaming. He blinks, eyes adjusting after the gloom, and what he sees makes his blood run cold. 

The walls are lined with shelves, floor to ceiling. Upon them are dozens - no, hundreds - of gadgets and weapons, amongst objects which Dave doesn’t even recognise, but he is certain of one thing, which is that they are very, very illegal. The laden shelves loom over him, some mystery items humming with electricity, little wires protuding from their shells and vanishing into the walls, others dead hunks of metal. There’s a wall of guns, old-timey rifles at the top, with more deadly looking things as his gaze drifts downwards. Pistols. Some sort of crossbow-bullet concotion. Harpoon guns, even. There’s a shelf with furs on it. Not quite taxidermies. Some kind of animal teeth too, long yellowing canines, resting on a tiered display. The whole room radiates cold. 

And worst of all is the metal slab in the middle.

It makes him think of those Brutalist housing blocks - all practicality, maybe quite nice when they were freshly built with a gleam of potential, but a few years down the track there’s rusty stripes leeching down the walls from screws and pivots exposed to the rain. 

This slab right in front of him is painted red with blood. It looks like someone tried to hose it down once the blood had already dried. On the sides there are drips, caked on, rust-red and blackening. The top is cleaner, with etchings from a scrubber. 

Dave feels sick. He can smell it in here, the blood, like iron, and he can smell the petrol too, stronger than in the corridor, making him lightheaded. He backs out, feeling behind him for the doorframe, needing some sort of stability in the face of something so horrifying. 

As soon as he touches the cool metal, he reaches an arm for the door, pulling it shut as fast as he can, unable to take his eyes off the remnants of carnage. With its slam, the alarm beeps, announcing the setting of the lock, and Dave falls bodily against the door, heart pounding. 

‘You are tresspassing.’ 

He looks up in shock. There, standing in the corridor with shadows darkening his features except for the small shine of his monocle, is none other than Reginald Hargreeves, local billionaire, philanthropist, and apparent owner of a murder bunker. 

‘I - I’m the electrician.’

‘And?’ Hargreeves’ tone is crisp. Chilling.

‘I was looking for the fuse box.’ As he says it, he realises how feeble it sounds even though it’s the truth. Hargreeves does not waver from his straight-backed pose, discerning gaze heavy upon Dave, clinical in its coolness. Dave suddenly fears that his body will be the next to lie bleeding upon the slab. ‘I’m sorry. I tried calling out to find someone.’ 

‘And upon hearing no answer you decided to wander through my private property? With the audacity to break into a locked room?’ 

‘It was unlocked!’ 

Hargreeves moves closer, like he’s preying on Dave, getting the measure of him. Calculating. Resisting the urge to look to his side and make sure there are no other murderers sneaking up on him, Dave instead steadies his breathing and channels his fear and anger into his fists. He can’t do anything stupid. He can’t let his guard down. Yet somehow he finds himself asking, ‘What have you been doing in there?’

‘It does not concern you.’ 

‘Actually, I’m pretty sure it does.’ Visions of blackened blood. Weapons he’s never even heard of. Gasoline making his head spin. 

Hargreeves steps closer once again. ‘You saw nothing.’ 

‘I know what I saw. You’re sick. Twisted. It’s -’

Before he can continue, Hargreeves interrupts, stepping closer once again. ‘Do you know what I think, Mr -?’

Dave does not answer him. He stays quiet, stands tall. 

‘I think that in the next five minutes you will leave these premises and you will forget we ever had this conversation. You will forget everything you have seen today.’ 

‘I’m not forgetting anything.’

‘You misunderstand me,’ Hargreeves hisses. ‘I am not giving you a choice.’

‘I understand you perfectly.’

‘Do you, now?’ 

Dave shakes his head minutely, in disbelief, not denial. ‘I’m not afraid of you. There’s no dirt for you to dig up.’ 

‘You are being foolish.’ Hargreeves steps forward once more; he now stands right before Dave, and he presses his golden-headed cane into Dave’s chest, hard. ‘I will ruin you, boy. That is not an empty threat. I have that power. So, one last time - what did you see in that room?’ 

Dave doesn’t keep his mouth shut. It’s not in his nature to submit to being blackmailed. He doesn’t hold cruel authority in any high regard.

He goes to Eudora and tips her off. 

That makes it sound professional and smooth. In reality, his hands are shaking as he recounts what he saw to her. She pours him a whisky, and he tries to hold the glass steady, sitting on her couch as he has so many times before. 

‘What the fuck,’ she says, as he gets to the good part. The horrific part. ‘Sir Hargreeves?  _ The _ Sir Hargreeves?’ 

‘I can show you the job order if you want. It was definitely him.’ 

‘Shit, Dave. This is mental.’ 

‘Tell me about it.’ 

‘Jeez,’ she says, running her hands through her hair. ‘Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow, you should come into the station and give a recorded statement. I’ll get an investigation going.’

The next morning Dave arrives at the station, nervous but clear-headed, rehearsed words running through his head. 

The station, when he arrives, seems deserted. 

‘Hello?’ he calls. ‘Patch? Anyone?’ 

There’s the sounds of arguing emanating from beyond one door. He thinks about knocking, then settles awkwardly in a chair by Eudora’s desk. 

Eventually, the door opens. The police captain steps out, red-faced, and Eudora follows behind. Her eyes widen when she sees Dave, and she immediately comes over to him, wringing her hands. He stands up. That expression is enough to make him wary. 

‘What’s happened?’ he asks. 

She shakes her head, speechless. 

‘What?!’ 

‘Dave… I think you’ll want to sit down.’ 

He stays standing. ‘Why? Eudora…’

‘There was a fire last night,’ she says. ‘At the Hargreeves mansion.’ 

He’s suddenly aware of the captain’s eyes on him, his watchful stare as he sits at his desk on the other side of the room. Eudora, harried. The tick of the clock. A burning flush of something - fear? embarrassment? confusion? - rising up his neck. 

‘A fire?’ he echoes. 

‘A big one. A whole wing burnt to ashes. And the firefighters… they’re pointing to an electrical fault as the cause.’

Dave stares. He rubs his mouth, hides the trembling. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he manages after a moment. His eyes flick to the captain, still watching carefully. 

Eudora tilts her head to the front door. ‘Let’s go get some air, yeah?’ 

Out in the sun, sitting on the steps, he says, ‘I didn’t fucking do anything,’ like he’s trying to convince himself. 

He didn’t touch a fuse box, let alone any of the house’s wiring. He didn’t tell anyone but Eudora about what he saw. It hasn’t even been 24 hours. 

‘But the job was still logged, wasn’t it?’ Eudora says. ‘Officially, you were there.’ 

Dave nods. Swallows thickly. ‘Yup.’

‘Okay,’ she says. It’s her “I’m-taking-charge” voice. He knows it well. It’s the same voice she’d use back when rallying himself and their other housemates to finally clean their flat after much too long putting it off. The same voice she’d use when he came into her room at one in the morning, drunk and miserable over some boy who’d broken his heart, and needing her advice. He hadn’t heard it in a long time. ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do, ‘kay? You’re gonna give me that statement and we’ll pursue this just like we were going to. He’s clearly got something to hide. You did not cause that fire. He can’t prove you did. He can’t scare you into silence with this kind of threat. I literally will not let him. Okay?’ 

He tells Eudora everything he saw last night. 

_ A basement. But not… not an ordinary basement.  _

_ I was looking for the fuse box.  _

_ There was a room…  _

_ More than I’ve ever seen before…  _

_ I didn’t complete my job…  _

_ He warned me not to say anything… _

She tapes it, dates it, timestamp and all. It’s early in the morning yet. 

That night the fire is in the news. Dave sits at home alone with a jittery knee, near his telephone. 

It starts with a shot from outside. Flames licking the sky, bright in the dark of the night. Black and white on screen. 

He can hardly hear the reporter when it cuts back to her polished routine. It’s even more disorienting when it cuts back to the fire, this time security footage from inside. But there’s no fire, not yet, not in this scratchy, poor quality footage. No fire. Just a man with a tool box, more fuzzy blur than anything else. A fuzzy blur about Dave’s size and shape, on his knees, doing something with the wires. Something unseen, and then he’s gone, the footage speeding up, the room empty, not a face to be seen, not once. 

And then a spark. The spark becoming a flame, and then growing and growing and growing, and back to the reporter. 

Dave hadn’t even stepped foot in that wing of the house. He’d never even gone close. 

Dave breaks out in a cold sweat. He never… he  _ never…  _

That figure was not him. And yet, from behind, peering past such awful quality - it very well could be. 

The telephone rings. He lurches over to it, picks it up and holds it to his ear. 

‘Hello?’ Voice calm despite how much he thought it was going to shake. Hands twisting in the spiral cord, tacky, rubbery plastic. 

There’s silence. 

‘Eudora? Is that you?’

‘No.’

He sits upright. ‘Who-?’ 

The line crackles. ‘I warned you, Mr Katz. Those who play with fire…’ 

‘Fucking hell. You can’t do this.’

‘I think you’ll find I can. I know about your little trip to the police. I know what you plan to do. You will not succeed. I have steps in place to ensure your ruin.’ 

‘I didn’t set that fucking fire -’ 

‘The footage tells a different story. I am sure the authorities will find it convincing enough, once I decide to press charges. You  _ were _ there, after all, Mr Katz. Then at the police with slanderous allegations before the ashes had cooled, before the story even hit the press. Awfully suspicious business.’ 

‘One video,’ Dave says. ‘That’s all you’ve got on me. A fake. They’ll see right through it.’ 

‘Perhaps,’ Hargreeves replies. ‘I find I can be quite persuasive.’ 

His heart races. ‘Not with this. You can’t scare me. I won’t stay quiet.’ 

There’s a pause. ‘Very well,’ comes the chilling reply. Then the line goes dead. 

Dave stands up. He feels lightheaded, goes to open a window. Digs in his back pocket for his smokes - but of course, he gave up that habit long ago. Runs his hands over his face instead, wondering how on earth he’s going to get himself out of this mess. 

The phone rings again later that evening. He picks it up cautiously. 

It’s work. They’ve had a call from the police. There’s going to be an inquiry. For now, he’s not required to come into work any longer. Until things are cleared up, because  _ I know you, Dave, I know your work. It’s not like you to be sloppy. They even suggested it was purposeful, but I can’t see that… _

No work, until things are sorted. 

Eudora’s car pulls up, brakes screeching, 

‘Did you see -’ she starts. 

‘The news? Sure did.’ 

‘Parker’s got the arson case,’ she tells him. ‘Conflict of interest, apparently, if I took it. It’s bullshit.  _ Bullshit. _ ’ 

He looks at her, desperate. ‘What do I do, Patch?’

‘There’s still what you saw,’ she says. ‘You still want to go public with it? Because I’ll be with you every step of the way.’ 

What else is there to do? He meant it. He won’t shut up. Not if he can help it. 

He was disadvantaged from the get-go. Should’ve realised it when Hargreeves went straight to the media, big and bold. Should’ve realised all he had left were crumbs. 

At the supermarket, pushing a shopping cart down the aisle. 

‘Disgusting,’ someone hisses. 

He glances over, only then realising it’s directed at him. A woman, glaring daggers. 

‘Excuse me?’ he says. 

‘I said, it’s disgusting. What you’ve done. Even worse, what you’re doing.’ 

He stares, taken aback, off-guard, box of cereal in his hand. 

‘I saw it all on TV last night,’ she continues, stepping forward. ‘Your “slander.” That poor old man, all he’s done for our town, and just lost his whole house to your own handiwork.’ She shakes her head, tutting. ‘It blows my mind, what some people will do. Taking advantage of the best of us. How  _ dare  _ you.’ 

All Dave can think is that Hargeeves only lost one wing of his mansion. The same thought running through his head on repeat. He has no defence at the ready. The woman tuts again, unimpressed, and walks away.

Cold eyes at the checkout. Murmurs. ‘Is that him?’ 

He’s walking home, still getting those funny looks. Someone points. He clutches his bags tighter, walks faster. 

‘No one believes me,’ he says to Eudora as she hands him a beer. She’s been spending a lot of time at his house. 

‘It doesn’t matter what they think. They just need to search the part of the house you mentioned, find that basement. Even if it’s empty, that’ll be something. And I know it’s not on the blueprints, but we’ll get a warrant, then we’ll search it. And that’ll be hard proof they can’t dispute.’ 

‘What if you don’t find it?’ 

Eudora huffs. ‘He didn’t burn that part of his house down. We’ll find it.’ She rests her head on Dave’s shoulder. ‘You just gotta hold yourself together, okay? Don’t let it get to you.’

‘I know,’ he says, sighing.

It’s easier said than done. 

On the phone again. Eudora’s voice, tinny. 

‘--- honestly couldn’t find a thing, I looked exactly where you said, but I couldn’t see it.’

‘You’re sure?’ he asks, desparation clinging in his voice. ‘By the bookcase, ground floor?’ 

‘I’m sure! I looked as hard as I could, Dave. None of the others were any help, the bastards.’ 

‘They’re all in Hargreeves’ pocket. I  _ told  _ you-’ 

‘Yes, I know, I know,’ she says, sounding annoyed. ‘We’re all corrupt obstacles of justice.’ 

Dave shuts his eyes. He can’t afford to upset her. ‘Not you, Patch. It’s just… I dunno.’

There’s a terse silence. ‘I’m doing what I can, Dave.’ 

The news. 

_ ‘--- Last week, Sir Reginald Hargreeves denied all claims made by electrician David Katz, some of which included blackmail and illegal possession of weapons. Police have been unable to find evidence to back up Katz’s claims. _

_ ‘Today, Sir Hargreeves officially dropped all charges against Katz, stating that it was human error, not malicious intent, which led to the devastating fire at his home. _

_ ‘We approached Mr Katz for a statement, but he declined to comment. As yet, he has not retracted his accusations towards Sir Hargreeves ---’  _

He switches the television off but stays sitting on the couch for a long time, in darkness. 

Another day, another phone call. Dave doesn’t head out much these days for proper face-to-face conversations. It’s not worth the sneers and snide comments. He gets mail, sometimes, telling him horrible things. He’s stopped opening most. 

‘--- we’re gonna have to let you go.’ His boss. 

‘What? He hasn’t even pressed charges!’ 

‘I know. I’m sorry, Dave, I really am. But it’s been such a massive scandal. Everyone’s talking about it. And, well… we’re a small company, you know that. We’ve been struggling since. The other guys, they don’t deserve to be dragged down into this mess. Maybe if you’d kept your head down…’

‘What else was I supposed to do?! I didn’t do it! How many times do I have to say that?’ 

‘Mm. Like I said, it’s complicated.’

‘It’s not-’

‘Look, we’re sorry, Katz. But there’s nothing we can do.’ 

They’re getting drunk, himself and Eudora, in celebration of the most royally fucked up event in their entire lives. 

Eudora’s still working away at it, quietly, trying to find some sort of lead to follow, but every way she turns she comes up against a wall, or else a gaping hole where some sort of evidence should be. Whether it was removed by Hargreeves or her own captain, she isn’t sure.

Dave, meanwhile, feels like the most hated man in town. 

‘Not everyone hates you,’ Eudora tells him, patting his knee. ‘A lot. But not  _ everyone. _ ’ 

‘Oh, gee. Thanks.’ 

‘Hey! It’s true.  _ I  _ still like you.’ She pats his cheek next. She always gets very patty when she’s drunk. ‘It probably just seems worse than it is. It’ll settle down.’ 

‘It’d better,’ he says darkly. 

‘Hey, dude. It could be worse.’ 

‘Could it?’ 

‘Yeah. He could’ve actually… you know… pressed charges. You could be up for trial, or, like… in prison. Or really, really in debt, paying for his repairs. It would’ve been a  _ really  _ bad time.’ 

Dave takes a deep drink. ‘He only dropped them so he’d look good. So I’d be the villain. Slimy old prick.’ 

‘I know,’ Eudora says, running her hands through her hair. It’s unusual to see her with her hair down. She’s been working too much. ‘But let’s be real. Even if he had pressed charges, he’d have probably found some way to make you look like the villain anyway. So you’d be a villain  _ and _ a criminal. That’s like… the worst combo.’ 

Dave laughs despite himself. Then he sighs heavily, sinking deep into the cushions of the couch. ‘If I’m a villain, how come I don’t have a secret hideout? At least then I could get away. Hide from society and all.’

‘You could go away. Go on vacation.’ 

‘Yeah? With what money? I don’t even have a job anymore. No job, too cowardly to leave the house - it’s bullshit. It’s a bullshit life.’ 

‘Just get another job.’ 

He rolls his eyes. ‘No one’s gonna hire me here.’

They end up newspaper in hand, going through the listings, trying to read through the alcohol blur.

‘I could drive a garbage truck,’ Dave says, pointing at one ad. ‘People would think that suits me, probably.’ 

Eudora holds the paper closer - right in front of her nose, peering at it owlishly. ‘Or, get this,’ she slurs. ‘You could be a  _ total  _ hermit. That’s just what you want, right? To go hide by yourself on an island?’

Dave frowns. ‘That’s can’t be a real job.’ 

‘It is!’ she insists. ‘Look!’ 

Pointing her finger at one small box, he squints to read it. Then he laughs. ‘A fucking lighthouse keeper? Get outta here.’ 

She laughs too. ‘I can totally see it. About time you started earning money for all this moping you’re doing.’

‘Nope. No way. Also, I don’t  _ mope. _ ’ 

‘Do so.’

~~~

‘It’s really nothing, nothing at all, in comparison to what you and your family went through,’ Dave says, his story dwindling to an end. ‘But it still fucked me up. And since I went out to the lighthouse, rather than dealing with what happened in any way, I just ignored it all. Hoping it would go away.’

‘Which it didn’t,’ Klaus adds. He’s lying with his head in Dave’s lap by this point. 

‘Not. One. Bit.’ 

‘Hm. You know what?’

‘What?’

‘I think I’m gonna kill him with my own two hands. And then once I’ve got my pelt back, I’ll do it all over again with my own two flippers. And also my teeth. For the finishing flourish. And for both of us. For every horrible thing he’s ever done.’ 

Dave snorts. ‘Okay, while that sounds like a  _ really  _ good idea to me, I don’t think Patch will approve. And I don’t want you to have to go to prison.’ 

‘He deserves it.’ 

‘Oh, absolutely.’ 

They fall quiet, mulling over the story and the places they have been without each other. Dave is deep in his thoughts - it takes a while for him to notice the way Klaus is studying him. As soon as he does, Klaus reaches up and cradles Dave’s face, tracing his jaw and looking at him with wide eyes, before pulling him down to kiss him softly - somewhat uncomfortably, what with the way Dave is nearly folded in half. 

He can’t lean that way for long, so stretches back up soon enough. Still, it’s the first time they’ve kissed each other since Klaus vanished into the waves on the island. Dave finds himself comforted by the sweet familiarity of it. 

He ends up shoving Klaus’s face off his lap so he can shimmy down and lie beside him, kissing him properly. After all this time, he’s missed it. Missed him. 

Soon they lie next to one another, with Klaus burrowed into Dave’s chest. Maybe asleep. Dave can’t quite tell. He’s near to dropping off himself, dozily presses a kiss to the top of Klaus’s head. And again, for the hell of it. He’s thinking of something important. Something just a little bit earthshaking (for him, at least). Something he’s known ever since he found out where Klaus was, but hasn’t voiced aloud yet, hasn’t spoken into existence. He will now. 

Once his resolution is fully formed in his mind he whispers it into messy hair:

‘I don’t want to stay silent anymore. It scares me.  _ He  _ scares me. But I’ll never shut up again if it means you’re okay. And free.’ 

Klaus barely stirs. It’s lucky, really, because then Dave would be extremely embarrassed at such a show of vulnerability, even though he’s just shared the tale that’s been weighing him down for near on a year. 

About time, he thinks. It was starting to drive him a little mad. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It becomes shamefully obvious how long it took me to get around to the last two chapters of this story when u consider how long ago i was asking all u guys about fuse boxes. Because i was writing this chapter then. And that was SO LONG AGO, i can’t even remember


	18. The Inferno

Needless to say, the situation isn’t going  _ entirely  _ to plan. 

The case is strong. Eudora’s a wonderwoman. A one woman whirlwind, ceaseless and righteous and so, so competent. 

Klaus is a little in awe (and he’s nothing compared to Diego, who worships the very ground she walks on.) 

She took their case higher up, to someone beyond the local team, someone who isn’t in the pocket of Hargreeves. A file full of their photographs, bruises and old clothes. Full of their truthful statements. Full of Dave’s previous allegations. All of it backed up by the few cops Eudora knew she could trust.

It was enough to get her a warrant, and one without Hargreeves’ corrupt stamp of approval too. 

Enough to get Klaus and his family some form of protection. 

Enough to get Reginald under lock and key. For now. Until he inevitably pays bail. 

Reginald is not a stupid man. From Klaus’s own experience of him, and from the stories he has heard from Dave and Eudora, he knows how cruel and ruthless he can be in pursuit of what he wants. And there’s one thing they are all very sure of: the hunter does not want to be brought to justice. The law is for the common people after all, not for elite geniuses like himself, who know best what good can come about from their sick projects, who know more than anyone else what is right and what is wrong - and obviously Reginald Hargreeves is never, ever  _ wrong.  _ Absurd to even think it. 

So of course when the selkies fled in the night, he acted cautiously. He covered his tracks - sealing up his bunker, somehow making it very, very hard to find (but not impossible). Eudora did not have anyone standing in her way this time around, and she found her way back inside through the internal false walls and the outdoor trapdoors. Her team was silenced as they traipsed into the darkness, metal clanging beneath their feet, the air stale to breathe. 

Real spooky shit, in the words of her most poetic officer. 

But again, Reginald was smart. He figured something like this might happen (in actual fact, he’d calculated it as very, very low risk. What do selkies know of human affairs? He’d seen how useless they were. Could barely even talk. He definitely didn’t bet on Dave and Patch being involved. Still, he took great pains to minimise all risk to himself, no matter how unlikely.) So when Eudora got in that bunker basement, she found it stripped bare, only the bare minimum left behind. A few strange looking guns. A harpoon that should be in a museum. A collection of well used knives. But little else. 

She found his lab rooms, emptied of most detritus. But (and she’ll use this in her case) - who builds a  _ hypothetical  _ lab? A  _ just-in-case  _ lab? Who does that, in their secret bunker, if they’re not planning to use it?

The cages are still there, built into the infrastructure, albeit down the windiest, most mazelike part of this underground manor. But she remembers the night-time heist down this part, led by silent Diego, could retrace those tense footsteps in her sleep. 

And why, your honour, would Sir Hargreeves build cages fit for human containment (only just) if he did not plan to use them? 

The warrant only gives them so much time, though. And Hargreeves won’t be kept in a cell for long. Worst of all, in their top to bottom search of the mansion, they still haven’t found the sealskins.

It won’t do. 

~~~

Under the cover of darkness, Klaus sneaks forth across the lawn. Clipped to precision, of course. He hates it, hopes that one day it will have the chance to grow long and wild, rippled with wind like the tussock out on the island, tangling around his bare feet. 

The moon tonight is a sliver, casting barely any light at all. The mansion looms over them all from its spot at the top of the low, sloping hill. Dark and empty. 

The scratchy sound of Dave’s walkie-talkie interrupts the silence, followed by Eudora’s voice:

‘Still no signs of movement here, guys. Are you there?’ 

She’s parked up outside the station, keeping an eye on the exit, her underlings watching the other doors in case Hargreeves tries to make a discrete escape. Not on her watch. 

‘Coming up the hill now,’ Dave replies. 

‘Sweet. Remember - fast as you can. And thorough, too, though I know you will be. Oh, and good luck. Over.’ 

‘Thanks, Patch.’ 

Klaus turns around to look at him. ‘You didn’t say it,’ he whispers, scandalised. 

Dave rolls his eyes, but raises the walkie-talkie back to his mouth. ‘ _ Over _ .’ 

It’s very satisfying.

The closer they get to the house, the quieter they are; silent shadows, barely a gleam from their eyes. The night is still too, not even a breeze. Back on the island, a calm moment like this was near impossible to find, the sort of weather Dave always said was perfect for a bonfire - which Klaus was always clamouring for, and rarely got. 

As he creeps up the hill alongside Dave, his brothers and sisters behind and ahead, he feels like the night is holding its breath for them. The world and its elements awaiting their return, poised quiet and careful. It’s so quiet that he can almost hear the distant roar of the waves - the wide and wild sea calling out to her children so far from home. An omen of good luck for sure. 

They reach the base of the house. Dave with his toolkit jimmies open a window, low enough to climb through. It splits from its sill with a groan. Klaus barely dares to breathe, stands close to Ben and squeezes his arm, seeing the reluctance there, the glimmer of fear. 

Thinking,  _ not back here again.  _

Klaus hasn’t really made the connection yet between this impressive facade and the dark, cold cell that held them captive. Even so, it’s hard to go back in. Once freed, why would he ever willingly step near again? There were spots in the harbour where he swam too close to a boat’s propellor, or grazed up against hooks and wide, sweeping nets, and sometimes it would be years before he swam there again. He had the luxury of choice, of course, in the great expanse of the ocean. Here, he has no choice to enter it again. He and his siblings must find the pieces of themselves that remain. They will not be whole without them. They will never be able to say goodbye for good. 

One by one they slip through the window. Or rather, they tumble. At least he doesn’t make as much of a racket as Luther, who’s bulky in this body as well as his other, especially when landing on those flimsy pieces of furniture. Diego made the worst noise of all though, by insisting on going first - headfirst, too - and diving through the window into an ornamental vase which shattered on impact. 

Inside, they split up again. The skins have to be  _ somewhere.  _

Luther and Allison go up to the top floor and attic. 

Vanya and Five scour the kitchens, the big rooms with their fancy furniture. 

Klaus and Ben and Diego: all the bedrooms, endless hallways of them. The offices, too - the hunter’s and Pogo’s. Flipping through paperwork galore, tipping boxes upside down, emptying drawers. 

Dave takes the bunker. None of them could face it. Besides, it has already been thoroughly searched by Eudora. The locked cabinet Klaus found in the storage room all those nights ago was nowhere to be found, she said. She couldn’t find anything at all. 

Through the house they scurry. Like mice, room to room, leaving no surface unturned. The more desperate they get, the more haphazard the search becomes. They forget the point of being silent - there are no guards to be seen. No Pogo. No Reginald either. Yet. There’s been no update from Eudora. 

Diego has their group’s walkie-talkie. Klaus wanted it, and he had it originally too, before Diego stole it off him at some point, from his very own pockets too. Ben told them it was stupid to fight over. He’s good like that. 

But they’re bickering over it again, standing amidst the carnage of their search, fairly certain that their skins aren’t here and more than a little disheartened, when - halfway through Klaus’s animated reminder to Diego that Dave is  _ his  _ lover and he deserves to check up on him because he might have found someting - a faint scream emanates from downstairs. 

They freeze. 

‘Was that - ?’ 

‘Vanya?!’ 

The three of them dash down the stairs, winding down and around, Diego leaping over the railing at the bottom. Klaus can hear the thud of Luther’s footsteps somewhere above. They don’t wait for him and Allison, though, and run into the enormous sitting room, breathing hard.

Vanya’s held back by a familiar guard, though she’s writhing furiously, hair wild, face creased by a snarl. Across the room, the hunter holds Five by his hair and the scruff of his neck. There’s blood on his lips - and though at first Klaus fills with burning rage at the thought of Hargreeves injuring his littlest brother, he soon notices the blood dripping from the hunter’s fingertips, the dark red trail that winds up his arm, the ripped sleeve and the spot where teeth sunk in. Pride, then: that’s his Five. 

‘Let him go!’ Diego yells.

The hunter looks up at the sound of their entrance, and for a brief moment uncertainty flashes across his face. He’s outnumbered now, and there’s no cages in sight. No weapons for him to turn on them. Only the useless detritus of this room - well cushioned armchairs and flimsy-spined books, animal heads mounted high on the wall, too high to use as a weapon, tables too heavy to lift. Some of the trophies would make a good dent. Klaus takes it all in with a glance; he hopes the hunter is too slow and old to think fast. 

(He knows by now that not all humans are slow and stupid. But the hunter? He barely lifts a finger to serve himself. He doesn’t have any of Dave’s resourcefulness, or Eudora’s determination. He’s withering away in comparison to them.) 

‘So they do talk after all,’ Reginald sneers. The sound of it sends inadvertent chills up Klaus’s spine. ‘And here I thought you were all deaf and dumb.’ 

Five tries to twist in the hunter’s grip, but winces as the hold on his hair grows tighter. The guard with Vanya tightens his chokehold of her, staring them down. 

The ground shakes. Luther and Allison are near. 

The hunter notices too. ‘So all seven of you came crawling back, I see. Did you really think I could be kept away for long?’ He scoffs. ‘Even with that policewoman meddling in things that don’t concern her, there is very little that gets in my way.’ 

‘She has a name,’ Diego hisses. ‘We all have names.’ 

‘I don’t concern myself with trivia,’ he says as Luther and Allison round the corner into the room. Klaus feels Ben slouch beside him, senses his disapointment, almost as though he was mentally willing them to stay away, find another way in, do something, don’t get caught in here like the rest of us. 

Seven versus two, yet all of them caught in his thrall. Too afraid to step forward. Near wincing, expecting a shock. Conditioned into obedience by he who still has their sealskins, who has them tamed. 

They can’t do anything, anyway. Not while he has Five and Vanya. Their youngest, their gentlest. 

They were supposed to have time. They were supposed to get a warning.

‘Now,’ Reginald says, ‘I believe it is due time we restore some order. Wild animals appear to have torn my home apart. Line up against that wall, one by one.’ He nods at the inner wall, near the corner, away from the shelves. When they stay still as statues, he adds, in a sharper tone, ‘ _ Immediately. _ ’ 

Klaus can’t tell who it is that moves first. Perhaps they all move as one. Darkly enchanted, the hunter’s words are law, but Klaus doesn’t care for the law, or at least he didn’t - not when he lived with Dave, not when he was free. He moves with his siblings, fast, nestling himself into the corner across the room. They huddle close. He grabs Ben’s hand, and Allison’s. They hold each other tight. Diego might be trembling, from fear, or from anger. He hasn’t spoken again. 

‘Put her with them,’ Reginald says, directing the guard to release Vanya. As he speaks, he prowls close to them, still clutching Five who’s the picture of fury, eyes blazing with hatred. Five - who can’t help but be dragged along, his hands clawing at Reginald’s own, trying to free his hair. ‘Tie them together.’ 

Klaus ducks his head, refusing to make eye contact with the guard, who’s busy with a loop of rope from his belt. Hargreeves thrusts Five amongst them, and at the same time there’s a blur of movement in his peripheral vision, seemingly coming from nowhere, a dark shadow - a fast moving shape - going straight for the hunter. 

With a satisfying, resounding crunch, the shade’s fist makes contact with Hargreeves’ face. 

Hargreeves staggers back, holding his fist to his nose - it is spouting blood all through his combed moustache, spattering onto the carpet. And there, standing victoriously proud, is Dave. His fist is still aloft, his face a little manic.  _ Klaus’s  _ Dave. 

Klaus lets out an incredulous whoop of celebration, and just like that the enchantment that tamed his family into silent submission breaks. 

Allison kicks upwards with her knee, getting the guard in his groin. While he’s in his blur of pain, Five, nearest to the front, pulls the rope from the guard’s hands. Diego grabs the wrists, tugs them back; Luther puts him in a headlock; Ben helps loop the rope around his wrists; Vanya ties the knot. Klaus picks his pockets, throwing the contents far aside. There’s little of use - but either way, this guard is not getting his hands on any of it. 

In a manner of moments, the guard is sinking to the ground, waylaid in total silence. 

‘Stop!’ Reginald bellows, having recovered enough from his blow to finally realise what is going on. His guard, fallen at the hands of his precious experiments. One by one, they all turn to stare at him. He pales in the glare of their hatred, continues to hold his hand to his nose like a shield. ‘You insolent creatures. You have no idea-’

‘You should check your tone,’ Dave says. Cool and calm. 

Only then does the hunter turn his gaze on Dave, scowling. ‘Adding assault to your record, I see. I thought you’d learned your lesson.’ 

‘I learnt a lesson, alright,’ Dave says. ‘Something about when you should give up, and when you should keep on fighting. But mostly about trusting your gut. And not letting cruel men ever threaten you into silence.’ 

‘Oh, how commendable.’ 

Dave doesn’t even falter beneath the intensity of the hunter’s sneer, and it fills Klaus with pride and adoration. ‘I think it is, actually. At least I know I’ll be able to sleep at night.’

‘Even in your jail cell? Breaking and entering, theft… They are serious crimes. Though I suppose it’s hardly a threat now, such conditions. You did imprison yourself of your own accord after all, out on that miserable island. Prison will surely appeal in comparison.’ 

‘What crime?’ Dave says. As they talk, he’s slowly stalked around so that he’s standing between the hunter and the selkies. They all gather themselves together, walking up to stand behind him, heads aloft, eyes hard. ‘No one’s gonna believe I was ever here. Not now that you’re bogged down with scandal of your own.’

‘My cameras will tell another story.’ 

‘Your beloved cameras have been syncing with a computer system at the precinct since your arrest. They have copies of everything.’ 

‘So they have evidence of you, and all of them,’ he gestures loosely at the selkies, who are still watching carefully, ‘here -’ 

‘Not if Eudora has anything to do with it. And I don’t think you need me to tell you that she does.’ 

For the first time, Hargreeves looks properly afraid - enough to stick. He nervously straightens his tie, smoothes down his crumpled suit jacket - the first time Klaus has ever seen a mark in it at all. 

‘What do you want?’ he demands. Klaus relishes the slight shake in his voice. ‘All of you.’ 

‘Jeez, I thought you were supposed to be intelligent,’ Dave says. 

‘The skins, then? That’s it?’ 

Beside Klaus, Diego makes a furious sound. ‘Of course the skins,’ he hisses across the room. ‘They are ours.’

There’s a pause. The hunter stands watching them, very still. He doesn’t blink once. Then he says in a measured tone, almost amused, ‘You presume I still have them.’ 

Klaus’s stomach drops. A flood of ice through his body. It is impossible, he’s lying, the monster, he can’t have. 

Judging by the murmur of disbelief emanating from all the selkies, his family is equally taken aback. The hunter has to have them, he always had them, taunted them with their nearness, always just out of reach. Tortured them with a taste of freedom. There is no way he would let them go. No way at all. The skins were his power and his pride. Never the selkies. 

Yet there he stands, smug, those cold hard eyes staring them down past Dave who holds his ground in between them all. 

‘You’re bluffing,’ Dave says. He doesn’t sound so sure. 

Hargreeves tuts. ‘I’m not a fool. The skins are long gone. Collector’s items, you see - and there was a lot of interest across the world. Luckily I had seven to go around, each one at great cost to those eager buyers. It’s safe to say you’ll never find them. People guard items like those with great care. I wonder if any will ever see the light of day again. Likely not.’ 

Suddenly nothing seems certain. Standing in the corner with his siblings, Klaus feels a buzzing, a growing depth of rage rising up in each of them alone, in all of them together. This man, this monster, collector of weapons and trophies and living creatures, has taken the most precious things from each of them and tossed them out into the universe without a care, without a purpose except to torment them. He had them in his posession when they lived with him, and the moment the selkies were gone, the moment they were no longer his, he made sure to make it impossible for them to ever be truly free again. 

It’s Vanya, interestingly, who’s the first to break. With a deep, mournful sound, she breaks out of the cluster of them, face creasing with unbearable agony. It’s so fast none of them have time to grab her to hold her back - if they ever would have done so anyway- and she leaps past Dave, towards the hunter, who steps back in shock but has no time to do anything else. She claws at his face, tearing that leering monocle from his eye and sends it flying to the floor where it shatters down the centre. They tussle and tumble, and the other siblings dart forward now, tearing jacket from limb, tackling legs, bringing him to the floor. Klaus pulls Dave out of the way of the fight, because he is just standing there, watching in shock, perhaps only now realising that he’s been face to face with the man he hates once again. Klaus wants to check in on him, but for now he has another idea quickly forming, so he merely pulls him to safety from his family in their wild frenzy. 

‘Help them get out,’ Klaus instructs, glancing at his siblings. Dave takes a moment to reply, seeming dazed. 

‘But your skins -’ 

‘Not here.’ 

‘You don’t know that.’ 

‘Why would he lie?’ 

Dave blinks at him. ‘Why? To keep them to himself!’ 

But Klaus can’t think straight. All he knows is that he’s angry, he’s lost, his skin isn’t here and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever find it again, and he wants to make Hargreeves hurt in the way that he’s hurting. Not like his brothers, who are busy trying to threaten the answer out of the hunter. Klaus may make it seem like he likes to bite and scratch and wound, but he’s lived a long time as a human now. He’s learnt things from them. He knows what hurts more than a punch. 

Around the room, his siblings have taken to mass destruction. Smashing vases, tearing pillows, feathers spilling out in clouds. The hunter is cowering, Luther holding his arms tight behind his back, Diego his head, Allison circling them all, firing questions. You wonder why we talk now? You want us to call you sir? Yes, we speak, sir. Always have, sir. When we want, sir. Tell us where they are, or else, sir. 

Dave says something to him, but he doesn’t hear it. As though there is water in his ears, drowning out all sound. 

‘Get them out,’ he says again. It doesn’t sound like his own voice. He barely looks to see Dave’s reaction. All he can think is that it’s gone, and he’ll never get it back, never swim again, never feel its silken fur sleek with water, never tumble and turn in the surf, never experience the curling up and joyous unfurling of transformation, and all because of that dead-eyed hunter, this suffocating house, those dreary cold cages. 

Klaus’s motions feel automatic. He follows his feet; they know where they are going. Out into the hallway, down the stairs. His sleepwalk state becomes a run, frantic, touching the walls, nearly tripping down the last few steps. Unfamiliar rooms but it doesn’t matter. 

He makes it to the kitchen. It’s already been ransacked by Vanya and Five, drawers pulled out, table and chairs askew. Inside it is dimly lit and he gets on his hands and knees, skimming through the detritus, looking for the tool he needs, the little bit of magic that will make Hargreeves’ cruel words turn to ash in his mouth.

He can’t find it, though. So instead he goes for the stovetop. Similar to the one in Eudora’s house.

Twists the knob: click, click, click. It catches. Flames burst upwards, electric blue in the centre, the hottest part of the flame. And delicious, delightful orange flowering outwards. 

He takes a moment to stare. It charms him, enchants him, glittering in the black of his eyes, casting this part of the kitchen aglow. 

Then he gets to work preparing the biggest bonfire he’s ever built. 

Cookbooks, pages torn, held over the elegant flame until they’re smoking, set amongst curtains. The draping, heavy fabric smolders, then catches, flame quickly tearing upwards. He goes to the pantry, spots the bottles of cooking oil. Grabs two, pours them around the bench, a trickle down across the floor, a stream out in the hallway. Splashes up the walls. There’s not much left by that point, but already he can see flames licking the ceiling at the other end and so he darts up the stairs, leaving this fire in the belly of the beast, this awful house that kept them prisoner all these months. 

Upstairs, chaos still reigns. Klaus whirls into the sitting room with the smell of smoke on his heels, eyes wild. Not all his family is out yet.

‘Go!’ he shouts. ‘Get out!’ 

His family barely listen. 

He runs around the room, grabbing Vanya by the wrist from where she’s tearing down antlers from the wall, Ben too - he’s standing on top of a couch like a sentry - and shoves them towards the door. 

‘Klaus,’ Ben protests, ‘what are you-’ 

‘There’s a fire,’ Klaus says, and Ben’s eyes widen. 

‘A what?’ 

‘Are you deaf?  _ Go!’ _

He runs back into the room. He has no idea where Allison and Five are. Hopefully outside with Dave - but they were all supposed to be out by now, or else Klaus wouldn’t have lit the damn thing so fast, so big. He hurries over to Diego, starts patting him on the shoulder insistently. He and Luther are still fixated on interrogating Reginald

‘Hey. We need to go. Now. Like, right now.’ 

‘Not until he tells us where they are,’ Diego says. 

‘Long gone,’ says the hunter. Diego nearly snarls. 

‘Look, we’ll be long gone too if we don’t leave right now,’ Klaus says, wondering what the hell Dave has been doing. This is  _ not  _ ideal. He can hear a faint roaring from downstairs, wonders if the others can pick up on it yet. 

‘What do you mean?’ Diego asks. ‘Klaus - what have you done?’ 

He replies in his own language. ‘Maybe set a little fire - though it’s probably not so little anymore, so, you know… a bit of hurrying wouldn’t hurt!’

‘And leave him to get away? No answers?’

Klaus shrugs. ‘Tie him up if you like. I’d rather see his face when it all burns down. Either way, we need to go. Now.’

Luther stares at him in disbelief, barely noticing as the hunter strains against him, red-faced. 

‘What are you saying?’ Hargreeves demands. ‘What have you done?’ 

‘You can’t be serious,’ says Luther, unfazed by his captive’s complaints. ‘What about our skins?’

Klaus jitters on the spot. The air seems hotter. The roar in his ears louder; though it may just be blood pounding and racing. ‘Did you not hear me? No. Time.’ He tries to pull Luther off the hunter, but it’s like tugging at a sunk anchor. 

Diego at least seems to have woken up to the urgency. ‘We should tie him up.’

‘But our pelts!’ Luther insists. 

The hunter’s equally inflamed. ‘Speak English, you animals!’ 

Diego turns on him. ‘Our skins or you die. Where are they?’

‘Timbuktu, Jakarta, the bleeding South Pole! The ends of the earth! Anywhere and everywhere!’ 

It’s a joke to the hunter, Klaus realises, how much he can incense them, how long he can lead them on a fruitless search. They can ask and ask and ask, but they’ll never get anywhere. He’ll give them nothing more than their own wasted time, wasted breath. Maybe he doesn’t believe they are truly serious. Doesn’t understand the desperation they feel.

Klaus breathes in deep and smells smoke. 

The others do too. Then the hunter, a moment later. ‘Is that -’ 

‘Tie him to burn,’ Diego says. ‘We have to go.’ 

‘Finally,’ Klaus says, as the other two set to work dragging the hunter over to the guard. 

‘Wait,’ Hargreeves says, urgency in his voice. His legs drag. ‘Wait, what are you doing -’ 

‘Our skins are not here,’ Luther says. ‘You will tell us nothing.’

‘We don’t need you anymore,’ Klaus adds. ‘Isn’t that great? We see no more of you, you see no more of us. Sounds peachy.’ He keeps an uneasy eye on the corridor, sees a fiery glow. Hears something - a beam, or a wall - groan. 

‘No, wait -’ 

‘Quiet,’ Diego says, ripping a large strip of cloth from his borrowed t-shirt and shoving it in the hunter’s mouth, all screwed up. 

‘Klaus, can you -?’ 

Luther holds out another bit of cloth towards him. Klaus nods, kneels, ties the hunter to a column with a sailor’s knot that Dave taught him, strong and secure, memorised by his hands long ago. He barely even has to think. 

The room is filling with smoke. It wavers, nearly shimmers, with heat. His forehead breaks out into a sweat, and he tries to swallow a cough. 

The hunter makes a desperate sound through the cloth. His eyes are wide and horrified. It’s hard to make out what he’s saying. Something repeated, like a mantra. 

He’s tied now, and Klaus takes Diego’s offered hand, lets his brother pull him to his feet. The three of them stand around Reginald Hargreeves, crumpled against the pillar, as he begs them. They watch a while. There is little compassion in their hearts at all for this man who stole them and broke them. 

‘... your… skins …. will tell…’

Luther moves like a whip, strange for one as tall as him. He tears the wad of fabric from Hargreeves’ mouth. 

‘A secret panel,’ he scrambles to say, all caught in disarray and panic. Heaving breaths, then coughing. The three brothers wait in keen silence. ‘In my office - you can’t let them… they’ll burn, I can’t watch them burn. Not them, not all my treasures -’ 

‘Where in your office?’ Diego demands, interrupting him. 

Hargreeves coughs again, his eyes slightly crazed. ‘Beside my desk. There’s a box. They’re in there - but you must let me go, must let me get to them, it’s locked, see -’ 

‘We’re not letting you go anywhere near,’ Diego says. 

‘Where is the key?’ Luther asks, tugging on the hunter’s collar. ‘Tell us or everything burns, you with it.’ 

‘All your treasures,’ Klaus adds ominously, voice tight as he tries not to breathe in too deeply. The smoke is getting thick. His eyes are beginning to water. 

‘Please, let me -’ he stops, coughing again. ‘I must -’ 

‘ _ Where?!’  _ Diego demands, his face in close. 

Reginald flinches, gasps, and coughs again, violently. ‘Around my neck,’ he sputters. ‘It’s around my neck.’ 

Luther fishes for a golden chain, pulls it out. He’s delicate with the key that dangles from it’s end, unclasps the chain and cradles the slender piece of metal in his palm. 

Klaus couldn’t breathe deep now if he tried. Beside him, Diego’s face is screwed up, his eyes streaming. He holds his sleeve to his mouth and nose, filtering the air through it. Klaus copies him, then holds his hand out to Luther, tapping his brother on the shoulder. 

‘Give it to me,’ he says. ‘I’ll go. You two get out of here. Make sure the others are all out.’ 

‘Klaus, you can’t,’ both Diego and Luther say at the same time. 

Klaus scowls at them. ‘I  _ can _ . I set the fire, I’ll be the one to risk it.’ 

Then he snatches the key before either of them can do anything - with the way Luther’s openly cradling it, it’s not hard at all - and he darts away from them. Diego lunges for him, but Klaus is the slipperiest of all of them, always has been, and he slips to the side so that Diego’s fingers only graze his middle. 

‘Now let me go,’ he hears the hunter cry. ‘I told you where - let me go!’ 

Klaus sprints for the stairs, takes them two at a time. Key jagged against his palm. At one point he burst out from the smoke into fresh air, and he gulps lungfuls down, heart racing. It’s cooler the higher up he goes, where the fire hasn’t yet reached - the office is on the third floor, up a winding circular staircase made from dark, glossy wood. It will burn hot, the perfect fuel. No matter how much the fire scares him, how fast it grew, how out of control it has become, there is a little bit of Klaus that is thrilled. It’s his fire, the biggest he’ll ever see. 

Back to the office, he tears through the mess wildly. Gets to the desk, hammers against the panels until he hears something hollow, then with no idea what else to do he begins picking at the seam with his fingernails. He hears shouts from below, something creaking and crashing. A boom, the sound of shattering. Glass. His breath, frantic, is louder than anything. 

The wood shifts, sliding to the left slightly. There’s room enough to poke his fingertips through, and he tugs and tugs, but it won’t budge. He hits at it in frustration. Turns to the room, scanning for something sharp, wishing he had Dave’s axe. He settles on a trophy of sorts, spiked and heavy, and takes to the panel like it’s a battering ram. 

He can smell smoke again. The floor feels hot beneath him. 

The wood dents, then splinters. Klaus wipes his brow, whacks the trophy against the panel once again, and finally breaks through. He claws inside, reaching for a box - and there is one, a chest, and it shudders across the inner floor as he pulls it towards him with all his strength. The hole in the panel is only big enough for his arms, he’ll never get the box through, so he has to grab the key and feel blindly for the lock it fits. He’s shaking. He’s never going to get it. He’ll burn to a crisp here with the hunter below, and all his family’s skins. They’ll be trapped by his failure. 

But soon enough his fingers brush against grooved metal. His heart leaps. He takes the key, twisting and turning until it slides in. And turns. 

He can’t hear the click, but he feels it. 

There’s shouting outside, down below. Maybe his name. His vision is going hazy again, his eyes stinging. 

Klaus throws the lid open. His fingers search, fall upon cool sleekness, brimming out of the box. He grasps it tight and pulls it through, and then the smell of it hits him even through the smoke-smell, something deeply animal and salty yet fresh as a fall of rain. Tears burn in his eyes, not only from the fire now, and he holds it to his chest momentarily. Just a moment. Heart thudding, rising up and up into his throat, nearly choking him.

It’s not his own, but it’s close enough. 

Close enough now to not breathing, he holds it to his nose, then dives back in with his other hand, pulling out the second, then the third. Draped across his lap. Fourth and fifth too, then the final two. All seven, overflowing from his arms. He wants to scream and shout in happiness. He wants to run rabid. He wants to throw his on and let the ocean take him back. 

But first he has to get out. His instincts take over. 

Klaus stands, then crouches, because it’s easier to breathe closer to the ground, and he goes to the window, grabs a chair, thrusts it through the glass with a grunt. It tumbles down out of sight. Air rushes in, but the sweltering atmosphere only seems to get hotter. He chances a glance behind him, at the door, and sees that orange glow, while ashy light streams across the room from the window. Swirling smoke in the light. 

He picks up the trophy again, clears the shards of glass that stick up in jagged triangles from the sill. Then he hurries to the desk, fills his arms with half the skins, and throws them out too - one by one - as far as he can, watching them soar from the house while he hopes they land somewhere the rising inferno cannot reach. 

The next half follow soon. He watches his go last. It makes his heart ache like nothing else, to fling it from himself when all he wants is to slip inside it. But he needs his legs a little longer. Instead, he braces himself with the feel of it, memory refreshed, senses alight, and runs out of the study -

Only to be hit by a wall of furious heat, burning the skin on his face, his arms. He skids to a halt, leaps back into the room and slams the door shut behind him. He leans against it, staring sightlessly at all the space he has left. 

Worst thing is, he really only has himself to blame. 

The roar from below is deafening. There’s more creaking and groaning, and he’s starting to fear that the floor beneath him will give out. The door’s heating up behind him, almost too hot to touch. He’s afraid to open it. And, he realises, no matter how pretty he finds staring into flickering flames, no matter how comforting the warmth, he’s still afraid of fire. Afraid of getting burned. 

He’d forgotten what it felt like to truly fear while in the thrall of the hunter. Whatever it had been before, a dull sense, is back to full vivididty. He can’t die now, he decides, not while his skin sits on the ground outside, lifeless without him to fill it and energise it, move it to the water where it will soar once again. Not while his family is out there either. Not while there’s Dave to see, to touch, to visit out on his island, bleak and remote yet the homeliest place Klaus has ever known. He can’t die when the life he wants is right there for the taking where before it seemed so impossibly distant. 

He has to move away from the door as it begins to sear his skin. 

The window beckons him. He leans out of it, peering down. Feels a bit sick from the height. But as his face appears, he’s met by cries of his name, of relief. His family and Dave wait down below, and Dave’s got his pelt safe in his arms, although the man himself looks sooty. 

The yells quickly turn urgent, telling him to get down, get out. Dave doesn’t yell, he merely stares up, pale with worry. Seems to be mouthing Klaus’s name. They are small down there, like dolls, like Klaus might pluck them up with his own hand. 

‘You have to jump!’ Allison yells, waving wildly at him with her spare hand. The other is clutching her pelt. 

Again, instincts take hold. He clambers out on to the windowill, both legs on the outside, swivelled so he can lower himself down by the hands. He doesn’t want to drop. He doesn’t want to think of how far he’s about to fall. 

There’s still some glass on the windowsill. He sees blood run down his fingers, but he doesn’t feel it. He shuts his eyes. There are bushes below, finely pruned but still sizeable. And still, inside, the fire roars. 

He lets go. 

It’s a swift fall. He barely even has time to think. Then there’s shock shooting up his legs and he tumbles sideways, collaspsing into the fall, absorbed by the green scratch of the bush. Dazed. 

Hands pull at him. Voices say things, but he can’t quite understand. 

He can’t walk, he’s gone all wobbly, and there’s a sharp pain shooting up his leg. The world is trembling, then it tips - he’s falling again, he’s caught, he sinks into someone’s arms. 

They’re running. It hurts, every step, every jolt. He hurts. Even when the running stops. There’s loud noises - a horrible, shivering non-human wail that goes up and down - voices are arguing, then suddenly the arms are gone. He’s in the grass. Someone pats his hair, and he closes his eyes. Aches. There’s a smell, comforting. Sea and sunshine. His pelt, close. 

‘Here, Klaus,’ someone says in his language, soft-voiced. Vanya. She’s close. He feels her press the sealskin into his arms. ‘It’s yours. Hold onto it.’ 

But he can’t hold onto it, not when there’s glass in his hands. He knows there’s glass there, that it will tear his other skin into ribbons. 

‘Be strong,’ someone else says. Ben, maybe. Or Allison. He blinks, sees their face leaning down. He can’t see Dave. The sun blinds him. The grass around him is long. It itches. There’s a startling pain, again, and it doesn’t go. He aches and aches and aches. 

His sealskin isn’t there when he wakes. It’s the first thing he notices - its absence. 

He’s stiff, flat on his back, not quite sure how to move. Even his eyelids feel sticky, hard to open. When he eventually manages it, he sees an unfamiliar room. White and too bright. There in the corner, Dave, his head fallen onto his shoulder, surely giving him a crick in his neck. 

Klaus doesn’t call out to him. He watches for a while, then slowly slips back under. 

Next time, he’s less stifled, more thirsty. Parched. His mouth is dry, so dry it feels like his lips will never part. He makes a sound, wordless, tries to move but can’t.

Before he can even ask, there’s a cup at his lips. Someone’s hand, cool and gentle, tilting his head. It’s Dave. 

Klaus tries to speak, breathes in, only it hurts - there’s a sharp pain in his lungs. 

‘Shh,’ Dave soothes, stroking his forehead. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe.’ 

‘My -’ 

‘It’s hidden with my things,’ Dave says, reading Klaus’s mind. ‘You’ll get to it soon, as soon as you’re better.’ There’s a fond, resigned look on his face. ‘Jumping out of a building like that - well, it’s not good for you to say the least. You’ve got a broken leg, a couple of fractured ribs too, and you also breathed in a load of smoke. But you’ll mend.’ 

‘Family -?’ he croaks. 

‘They’ve gone home. They wanted to stay, but it’s best they disappeared for a while, even though no one saw them at the house. Most of them, rather. Lucky you lot have the perfect diguise, eh?’ 

Relief floods through him. He pictures his family tumbling through waves, sun-bleached and wild and free. Almost tastes the salt of it, feels better just knowing they’re home even while he remains stranded. It’s okay, though. He’ll be with them soon. 

Still, there’s one thing he doesn’t know.

‘Dave?’

Dave sits down on the bed. The sheets make a crackly sound. He takes Klaus’s hand in his. ‘Hm?’ 

‘The fire…’

‘Yeah? The fire they tell me you set on purpose?’ 

‘Mm. Was it big - from the outside?’ 

Dave’s eyes go all crinkly - it’s Klaus’s favourite smile of his. ‘Insanely big, you pyromaniac.’

Klaus manages a small smile in return. 

‘The whole house burned to ash,’ Dave continues. ‘You should’ve seen Hargreeves’ face.’ 

His heart skips. ‘Alive?’ 

At that, Dave sobers up. ‘Unfortunately. When I realised where he’d been left… well… I couldn’t knowingly leave him there. Mainly because it’d really complicate things with the law if he went up in smoke. So, yeah, the bastard lives. Just not in a fancy old mansion, this time. I think he’s been put up in a motel or something. Probably five stars, but honestly all we really wanted was the skins, so I’m not thinking about that. He’ll be in prison soon enough. How’d you know that it’d make him talk, by the way? Seeing everything going up in flames? The guy didn’t bat an eye at threats of bodily harm.’ 

‘I didn’t know,’ Klaus replies hoarsely. ‘Just wanted to.’ 

‘Well, thanks,’ Dave says, and he gently pushes Klaus to the side so there’s room enough for them to lie side by side. With their faces close, Dave whispers, ‘You finally did the thing I got blamed for all those many months ago.’ 

Klaus counts the specks of light blue in his eyes. ‘Sorry.’ 

‘Nah. Don’t be. If anyone was going to actually do it and get away with it, I’m glad it was you. Also, I’m pretty sure the worst punishment you’re going to get is a slap on the wrist and a warning. If it’s anything more, I’ll get you out on bail then we can run away.’

‘You’re not in trouble?’ 

Dave kisses him on the end of the nose. ‘Nope. Your kid brother had the presence of mind to drag me away with the rest of them when they ran. And when I say dragged, I mean  _ dragged.  _ Ben stayed with you, pretended he’d noticed you were missing from Eudora’s when the emergency services arrived.’ Dave smiles at him. ‘Your whole family is actually pretty good under pressure. Quick thinking and all.’ 

‘Pretty sure it was...’ Klaus pauses to clear his throat, painfully, ‘... a total fluke.’ 

Dave laughs softly, the bed wobbles. ‘Maybe. You’re also all  _ extremely  _ feral. I thought I’d seen plenty of that from you on the island, but clearly we didn’t even scratch the surface. It’s quite impressive, really.’ 

Klaus doesn’t really have it in him to speak anymore, so he gives Dave a drowsy, disoriented and very proud grin. 

‘I was even a bit scared for a moment,’ Dave continues. ‘But I think I actually just love it. Probably. You weird, wild thing.’ He caresses Klaus’s face, smiling and smiling, and Klaus knows he’ll never get tired of staring. ‘Now. No more talk - you sound like a pack a day smoker. Just rest up. I’ll be right here, okay? Shout out, or croak, if you need me. Whatever takes your fancy.’ 

Klaus raises a shaky hand to flip him off, lovingly, and relishes the last press of Dave’s lips on his cheek as he pries himself away from the bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to the ashes of reginald's mansion  
the loss of all his prestige and power (which he must observe, painfully, from prison)  
and the balance this brings to the world once more


	19. The Turning Tide

Klaus leans on Dave, still limping a little and sealskin under one arm, as they make their way down to the shore. It’s late afternoon, everything mellow and warm. They have driven out to a quieter beach further down the coast from town, where there is less of a chance they’ll be stumbled upon, and it’s so far proved to be ideally abandoned apart from a young family in the far distance playing in the sand. 

‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ Dave says, again. ‘If your leg’s still giving you grief, we can wait a while longer.’ 

‘It’s fine, Dave.’

‘Because you know I don’t mind driving out again -’ 

‘ _ Dave _ ,’ Klaus chastises, amused. ‘Honestly.’ 

Dave grimaces, shades his eyes from the sun. ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll stop. It’s just… you know. I’m finding it a bit tough to see you go this time.’ His arm tightens around Klaus. 

Apart from Klaus’s injuries, Dave enjoyed the time they got to spend together while he was in hospital, then while he was recovering at Eudora’s. They tiptoed around each other for a while, rediscovering what it meant to be together - whether it be carting bowls of food to his invalid, or listening patiently while Klaus struggled to put to words what he experienced during their parting.

Klaus darts in and kisses him on the cheek. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I won’t be long. Promise.’ 

‘When’s full moon?’ 

Dave gets a shrug in reply, and a brief, ‘About a week away.’ The nonchalance confuses him a little. 

‘Well, you know where to find me,’ he says anyway. 

Klaus grins. ‘I have a feeling it won’t feel that long at all until I’m back. Before you know it, even.’ 

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Dave says. He hugs him even tighter, if that’s at all possible. ‘Alright. Get yourself home to the sea. It’s been way too long, I know that.’

They’ve been to the beach before now, of course. The day Klaus got out of hopsital they came down, just so he could breathe in the fresh air and cast his face to the sky. Even so, the joy that animates his whole person is palpable on this final trip. 

Klaus doesn’t even check to see if the distant family down the beach is looking before stripping himself of his clothes. He pauses once he’s naked, clutching his sealskin, turning to Dave. ‘You’ll come in with me, won’t you? It’s sunny - it’d be just like old times!’ 

So Dave ends up wading into the water alongside Klaus, holding his hand until the water is lapping against their chests. Klaus’s eyes are closed. He seems tranquil. Dave knows he’s staring but he can’t stop looking at him, not really; he’s tense with nerves and a little bit sad, but seeing Klaus so at peace brings up a rush of warm affection, more in step with the sweetness of this early summer’s day than the dread that they won’t see each other again. 

Klaus grins wide at him, pure joy, then drapes the skin over his head and shoulders before dipping under the water and resurfacing as a seal, shining. 

He swims a few mad loops around Dave, brushing up against him, before darting out to deeper waters. Dave relishes those last touches, squinting as he watches him play, while his throat goes all tight - because while he’s seen this transformation before, said goodbye like this too, he still finds himself breathless. 

He wades out until he’s up to his neck, being lifted off his feet with the bigger waves. There’s no chance of seeing Klaus like this, not now he’s likely deep beneath the surface. He’s just waiting here for a while. Enjoying the refreshing cool, nearly zoned out. It’s why he’s so surprised when the seal darts up right beside him, tickling his side with long whiskers.

He’s even more surprised when the seal ducks under and when it rises again, it’s Klaus’s human face, blinking, lashes dark with the wet. 

Klaus laughs in exhiliration. ‘Yay! That still works, then.’ 

‘I don’t…’ Dave sputters, entirely stunned. ‘What?  _ How? _ But the moon - what just -’ 

Klaus wraps his arms around Dave’s neck and kisses him deeply, cutting him off. 

When they pull away, Dave repeats, ‘What?!’ 

Klaus says, ‘Oh, you know, just an unintended benefit of a potentially devastating experiment.’ 

Dave can feel the cogs kicking into action in his mind. ‘...Hargreeves did this?!’ 

‘Yup.’

‘You can change  _ whenever?!’ _

‘Mhmm.’ 

Dave holds onto Klaus, treading water. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Yeah, it’s a bit weird. We all felt extremely muddled after he did it. Like the whole world had shifted slightly and we’d been left behind, and also turned upside-down on our heads. Can’t say I’d really recommend it, Dave.’ 

Klaus demonstrates the ease with which he can change back and forth, goofing around in the water, swimming between Dave’s legs a seal and coming out a person. It's instantaneous, still unbelievable even as Dave sees it happen again and again with his own two eyes. Eventually, though, Klaus tires and ends up in his human form, resting against Dave again in the shallows. 

‘I’m gonna need you to help me get back to the car,’ Klaus says.

‘The car? Aren’t you going out to sea?’ 

Klaus pretends to think. ‘Well… I could. But then I had a little think and remembered that you’re also heading back tomorrow on the boat, and home’s actually  _ really  _ far from here, and my leg or my flipper or whatever you want to call it is still pretty stiff so I don’t particularly fancy swimming the whole way. Especially not when I could catch a ride with my dearest sweetest human.’ He looks up at Dave beseechingly, an innocent expression. ‘So what do you reckon? Can I stowaway on board?’ 

Dave smiles. ‘Well… I suppose this way you’ll be officially recorded as living on the island. We’ll finally have rations for two. I can hardly imagine the luxury.’ 

He knows that it’s something Klaus didn’t even need to ask. No doubt Klaus knows it too. 

~~~

At dusk, the light begins its swirling dance across the ocean, skimming over water and rocky islands, swift and bright. Dave’s an old hand at setting it now, after over a year of manning it day in and day out. 

At dusk, too, a half moon rises. 

Dave sets up on the beach with a thermos of hot chocolate, sips at it as the night falls dark around him. He watches the moon make its way up from watery depths, up and up into the sky. Where its light falls on the waves, they glitter pale silver. He breathes along with their rhythm. 

The sea is peaceful tonight. Almost meditative. There’s only his thoughts to accompany him, that and the slap of his hand as he bats at the sandflies biting at his arm, and the occasional call of a seabird flying home late. 

The quiet is good sometimes. It never stretches long and lonely anymore. 

A few hours after sunset, he sees a black head part the surface of the water, sending ripples outwards. It shines in the moonlight, sleek. It’s followed by another, and then more, until there’s six heads swimming towards him, and he thinks he can almost see their clever, wily eyes glinting too. 

He settles the thermos snugly in the pebbles, then stands and wanders closer. Almost hypnotised, but buzzing with the thrill of the impossible, the wonderful. 

Just before they reach the shore, the seals duck beneath the water once more. A quick dip. When they emerge, they do so with hair and ears and hands and elbows, the pelts draped in their arms, and they smile and call out to him with human voices and human eyes, while he raises a hand in return, a thrum in his heart. 

Klaus is first out of the water, as he always is. He runs up to Dave, scattering stones as he goes, and throws himself into Dave’s waiting arms, soaking wet and cold, holding on tightly to his neck. Dave spins him, kisses him hello. 

Klaus only left four days ago, of course, but it’s fast becoming tradition to greet each other like this. He comes and goes when he wants, as is their agreement, keeps his pelt in the wardrobe where it feels most safe. He’s no longer bound by the moon, leaves more often than ever before, but never for very long. And Dave always trusts him to come back. 

The other selkies gather on the beach, six altogether. Their wariness of him is almost nonexistent now, but sometimes it takes them longer to adjust. Longer than Klaus, at least, who is as at home here on land as he is in the sea these days. 

‘Diego absent again, I see,’ Dave says. ‘He’s making a habit of that.’ 

‘God, he won’t stop talking about Eudora, it’s  _ insane,’  _ Klaus grumbles. ‘I swear, he used to give me so much shit for seeing you, and now he’s gone all lovey-dovey himself suddenly it’s all fine and perfect and there’s no issues whatsoever with fraternising with humans.’ 

‘Fraternising, hm? Is that what this is?’

‘ _ Yes _ , Dave,’ Klaus says, patting him on the arm.

Dave grins at him and tugs him closer to his side. ‘I think they’re cute, him and Patch.’

‘Course you do. Sap.’ 

‘She’s been talking about him a lot in her letters.’ 

‘Ugh. You’re all saps. Awful.  _ Awful _ .’ 

‘I know you’re a romantic at heart really,’ Dave whispers. ‘But it’s okay. Keep up the facade for now, you can be cutesy and happy for them later. I don’t mind.’ 

Klaus shoves at him, hiding a smile. ‘Shut up. More importantly, did you make a bonfire?’ 

Dave had indeed made a bonfire. He and the family of selkies gather around it, unlit. 

‘I thought you could do the honours,’ he says to Klaus, handing him the box of matches. ‘Try not to use half the box this time.’ 

It’s unorthodox for the selkies, dancing their midnight dance to firelight. But, they tell him, they are no ordinary selkies now. The smell of smoke is not frightening (Klaus got over his nearly-burnt trepidation very quickly considering, starting small with candles and matches lit near absolutely nothing flammable). It smells like their freedom, they tell him. The day they were freed from that house for good, skins found, cages burned until they exist only in their memory. It smells like the island with the lighthouse in the misty mornings, they tell him, when sea fog rolls in, and Dave’s up in his cottage with the fire burning warm, and the smoke drifts down to the beach. That beach where the selkies happily sleep now, no longer leaving it only to the regular seals. 

So Klaus throws a match to the bonfire and it catches, growing tall and bright and warm. They dance, and Dave joins. They sing, and Dave listens. Whatever worlds they conjure with their voices, they don’t send him sinking to the floor in terror or melancholy any more, no more visions of a past that haunts him. Because it doesn’t haunt him anymore, not really. Not when he’s no longer weighed down with his own silence. Not when he knows justice has been served. That house is gone, all its opulence, all its terrors. Hargreeves is powerless. Dave tries not to follow the news about him, but Patch keeps tabs, tells him he’s lost much, much more than just a house. His status. His power. His credibility too. People generally don’t take it too well when convicted traffickers start making mythical excuses for themselves, rambling about shapeshifters and magic and scientific breakthroughs all in the same breath. 

Meanwhile, despite all Hargreeves’ efforts, the selkies continue to swim the seas in secret, walking the shores whenever they choose. They suffered the most at his hands, nearly lost everything to him, yet here they are, alive and thriving, unafraid. 

As the night dwindles to an end, the black sky slowly turning grey, Dave steps away and settles down to watch them revel. He’s sleepy, eyelids heavy, legs wobbly from dancing the night away. The fire is low now too, bright orange sparks drifting up.

He watches them shout and leap. Round and round they go, holding hands. It’s one of the most joyful things he’s ever seen. 

If he ever tries to tell stories about them on a day far, far from now, he’ll likely be thought of as insane. People did always say (the ones who still talked to him anyway) that he’d go crazy out on the lonely island, after all. They’ll be so self-satisfied. Luckily, he’s happy enough just to embrace the thrill of being part of something so otherworldly. Happy keeping them secret. 

Midway through his dance, Klaus pauses, grinning over at Dave. There’s firelight catching in his eyes. Dave smiles back, thinking that most of all he’s happy seeing them free and safe. Klaus in his element, as perfectly chaotic as ever. 

It’s a wonderful thing to witness. 

The End. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, and for all your kind comments. Much love <3 <3 <3


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